Is Brown really the Tories’ biggest asset?
February 9th, 2010
Are all parties underestimating the opposing leaders?
James Forsyth had a post on the Spectator CoffeeHouse blog last night setting out a view that’s often expressed on PB threads:-
“We just need to ram Gordon Brown down the electorate’s throat’ one Tory staffer said to me today when talking about how the party could get back on the front foot.” The unspoken thought was that the prospect of five more years of Gordon Brown would be enough to send voters into the welcoming arms of David Cameron.
The mirror image of this are the repeatedly expressed views from anti-Tories who believe that their views of Cameron are shared by the electorate as a whole. The fact that they think he is a “smarmy salesman” doesn’t mean that other voters will see through once the crunch comes.
And, of course, both Tory and Labour supporters, of course, seek to diminish Nick Clegg at every occasion believing him to be an electoral liability for his party.
I think that all these views are wrong and that it is highly dangerous to pin your party hopes on other parts of the electorate sharing the same view of leaders as you do.
Why are many with a passion for politics so partisan - particularly when it impacts on their judgement?
Brown has made a lot of progress in recent months and we have seen his approval ratings move forward. He is still some way behind Cameron who has seen a bit of decline. While fewer voters have a view on Clegg he is polling reasonably well.
Where the Tory official quoted above was misguided was to think they can pin so many of their hopes on their their belief that public perceptions of Brown fit theirs.
If you want to attack on personality then you need something further to peg it on. You also have to wait for the closing few days of the campaign when the nation is much more engaged with the battle and you can possibly get away with serious negative campaigning.
Mike Smithson
MessageSpace Advertising
Yes
Seriously, you cannot polish the turd, that is “Gordon Brown 5 more years”
Ask why Labour’s first campaign poster doesn’t feature The Great Leader and the question is answered.
It’s a shame for Labour that Brown blew the “Not Flash, Just Gordon” idea, by being rubbish. It could have been quite effective.
Back in 2005 it was vote Blair get Brown. Also, Blair did not feature in most candidate’s election leflets. Of course now we know the full horror of Brown…
haha, not Flash, just Crар!!
Make up your mind Mike - for many months now you have been pushing the line that Brown was a huge electoral liability for Labour.
One look at that picture.
When Gordon smiles, somebody somewhere is suffering for Gordons benefit
Yes. But not because he is personally a lying scheming inept and cowardly bully (though I believe he is) but because he personally represents No Change At The Top.
Brown has been at the very height of Labour government for 13 long disastrous years. Everyone wants a change, even Labour. Everyone knows we need a change.
The fact that Gordon Brown is STILL THERE (despite his own party trying to unseat him three times) makes the entire nation feel a bit queasy and sick; the concept that he could STILL BE THERE FOR FIVE MORE YEARS makes grown men weep blood.
This is why it was so important for Labour to oust him, and why it was so calamitous that they didn’t. Brown is the emblem of Everything Staying The Same.
With polls showing vast majorities believing we need a change, Britain is broken, we need a fresh start, etc, five more years of Brown is impossible to sell to voters.
But I emphasise, that’s not cause he’s perceived as a cnut. Even if he is.
The difference, Mike, is the attitude of the parties’ own supporters.
Some LibDem supporters might have doubts about Clegg (which they largely keep to themselves), and some Conservative supporters have doubts about Cameron (which they don’t keep to themselves).
But Labour supporters, activists and MPs, right up to Cabinet level, make little attempt to conceal their own disdain, bordering on contempt, for Brown.
Yes.
Brown’s incompetent, unlikeable, delusional and has no redeeming feature other than political mortality.
However, it’s not right to focus solely on Brown being a cock, so I’m pleased that the Tories haven’t done this as yet.
Clegg will get a campaign boost, so will Cameron. Brown will not.
5 - it doesn’t have to be personality it’s his record as both CoE and PM,
the economy stupid if you like..
also FPT
521 - thanks TSE
I wouldn’t dream of it but I suspect some might.
by Kristin February 9th, 2010 at 1:11 pm
It might be worth you reposting that warning again just in case.
Today’s poster evidence suggests that Labour strategists would answer this question “yes”. To put the leader of the opposition on the first Labour poster is an extraordinary decision.
If Labour really do intend to keep the Prime Minister out of the election campaign as much as possible, we can expect the Tories to develop themes such as “Where’s Gordon?” and “Have you seen this Prime Minister?”, quite possibly with unamusing internet artificial viral campaigns.
If I were the Conservatives - or the LDs for that matter - I would save all the crap I have on Gordon - and there will be lots…- until the second weekend before the election.
Two Sundays’ worth of negative headlines would do…
I don’t think that Clegg is a liability for the Lib Dems personally. I initally thought that Huhne would have been better, but recently he sounds increasingly hysterical and self righteous, Clegg is definately much more likeable.
I voted for DD rather than DC, but in the same way, their actions since have shown DC to have been the better choice. Anyone who thinks DC is a “shallow salesman” is deluding themselves.
I can’t find anyone who likes Brown, I used to work with a Labour councillor, in 2007 he couldn’t stop telling me how wonderful Brown was. In 2008 he stopped. He really motivates Tory campaigners too, in a way that I don’t think Blair ever did.
Fpt 514- yes, it delivers stable majority government, even when that government is Labour
520- exactly, shallow partisan reasons, as far as I’m aware it has nothing else to recomend it
“Not Flash, Just Gash”.
Now that’d be a campaign slogan that’d show that the Tories are dahn wiv ver kidz.
Its true that Brown has seen some recovery in his personal ratings in recent months, but didn’t the same thing happen to John Major in early 1997?
FPT - 515 - Further to that, and for Mike and posters on here.
Ashcroft, who is also deputy chairman of the Conservative Party and was made a life peer in 2000, is seeking an injunction banning repetition of the allegation at the centre of his legal battle.
I think the view that Brown is a drag on his party is pretty well-founded.
His ratings have improved, but they still range between bad and awful.
I’d agree that knocking Clegg is a waste of time.
“The Gordo9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made. No Gordo9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information. We are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error.”
I’m right in thinking, recently polling shows Brown is more popular than his party?
Incidentally, the Labour poster is terrible on about six different levels. Even wage slave has given up on “David Camera On”.
“Where the Tory official quoted above was misguided was to think they can pin so many of their hopes on their their belief that public perceptions of Brown fit theirs.”
He isn’t necessarily entirely wrong, but that sort of mentality breeds laziness and complacency. It stands to reason that, if everybody dislikes Brown, the Tories need not campaign strongly, wisely, or effectively. They can simply sit around and wait for the votes to roll in. It’s better for the Tories to tell themselves that, whether or not it’s true that everybody detests Brown as much as they do, they still need to fight as if Brown and Labour have the electoral advantage.
The polls alone these days should be enough to scare them from a victor’s mentality into a fighter’s mentality. But if Tory officials are bold enough to openly proclaim they can win just by talking more about Brown, it looks like Cameron has failed in his bid to ward off complacency in Tory ranks.
I might add that Cameron is, increasingly, less of an asset to the Tories as the shine comes off (that may be no bad thing long term, as hype so commonly leads to disappointment). But Cameron is NOT a negative.
Clegg is neutral. Just bland. I bet half the country would struggle to identify him in a photo.
The party leader with the strongest positives, until recently, has probably been Salmond. I know many Scots despise Wee Eck but he has managed to be canny, successful and popular at the same time, quite an achievement. Though I understand his gloss, too, is now wearing a bit thin.
The last Labour leaflet which was posted through the door, (Nov?) as very much Gordon free. I would be surprised if any poster of Brown remained graffti free. Can any poster recall the last time Brown was seen on any Labour leaflets from their local Labour canidates/councillors? I thought that there was some surprise that Brown was missing from leaflets at C and N.
16
In the naval sense of the word?
25- I haven’t had a Labour leaflet since 2007, or a Lib Dem one since the mid 90’s
13. guido would revive the where’s gordon map.
27- I should also add that I got an SNP leaflet last year…
It is easy to see that there are many people who will like/dislike the personality of all main party leaders but no party should seek to win only on the basis that their bloke looks/sounds better than the others.
However it is true that the shallow aspects of a personality do sometimes work. Would the much better debater William Hague have been so badly mauled by Tony Blair in 2001 if he hadn’t been a bald Yorkshireman with a need to appear trendy by wearing a silly baseball cap? IT shouldn’t have made any difference but there is no doubt some people would have been put off from voting Tory because of it.
16 - Gash as defined here
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=gash&defid=322207
Hans Blix has said a lot of fascinating stuff about Blair on Oz telly tonight; no wonder he is not invited to the Chilcot enquiry, it would be dynamite. He was invited to the Netherlands and they advised the war was illegal after his (and other) comments.
Mike’s thoughts above are right, my take on it is that people have a visceral hatred of Brown whereas Cameron is a posh git who seems a bit cleverer.
And Clegg is the bloke in the playground that nobody played with and stil nobody likes hom and wants to play with him.
Based on the above you vote for the posh toff from the 3 options offered, although with little conviction as none excite the public that much.
24. I would think Clegg’s unprompted recognition rate would be well below 50%.
27 - I thought you lived in Liverpool?
My line would be pictures of Charles Clarke, Geoff Hoon etc looking at Gordon. “If these leading Labour politcians don’t think Gordon is fit to lead our country - why should you?” Simples!
34- nearby, but I was in Scotland at the time. Although I believe that Liverpool did once elect an Irish Nationalist MP.
16 How about -
“Flash Gordon?
Flush Brown!”
I think it’d need to be an animated (so web) “poster” with a picture of “flash” Gordo turning into a brown poo and being flushed! Not very classy but I think that’s appropriate!
Seriously, you cannot polish the turd, that is “Gordon Brown 5 more years”
by The Screaming Eagles February 9th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
No you can’t. But labour will attempt to roll it in glitter and try and keep it out of direct sunlight to keep the stink down.
That is the best they can hope for.
P.S. Can somebody for the love of god please airbrush the photograph at the top of this piece.
21 Actually, no. The most recent MORI poll shows that Brown is less popular than his party, and Cameron the reverse.
31. Openly calling Brown a See You Next Tuesday would be a vote-winner.
Yes, good point Mike. The Right fails to appreciate that Gordon is loved by many in the Labour Party and many Labour-inclined voters. Of course, for a decade or more Gordon and his underlings have undertaken a project unknown before in British politics, namely an exercise in myth making on an astonishing scale. Gordon was portrayed as the greatest intellectual of his generation, a man of impeccable ethical standards, a man of soaring courage and vision etc. etc. Why, I even learnt on yesterday’s thread that it was put about that Gordon’s list of sexual conquests verged on the epic. After that onslaught, no wonder some simple souls on the Left still believe.
39 - Thanks Sean.
35. You just need a poster of Brown’s face.
Next to it should be the words
‘”A psychologically flawed deluded control freak,” Labour Minister Charles Clarke, talking about Gordon Brown, May 2007′
One for the final weekend of campaigning, I think, as OGH suggests.
40 - Damn right, we’d be called be the nasty but funny and accurate tories.
41. haha very good, worthy, dare I say it - of Adrian Harper.
Humour is always the best weapon.
Look what it did to Sarah Pailin.
Camerons ratings accelerated downwards when people started to laugh at him again, the poster being the perfect vehicle for thoughts that were already there.
Ironic really that Labours most effective poster was paid for by the Tories.
As for Clegg, his ratings have stayed as high as they were during the Gurkhas issue.
No mean achievement.
Brown seems to have the most negative impact in the Midlands.
There may be a regional angle to some of this negative stuff.
Not only do Labour not want to use Gordon’s mush on GE lit they also do not want to run the election on the economy. The Tories should keep hammering away at GB’s record as CoE & PM and if necessary use his photo.
But it shouldn’t be personal, just that he’s been a total disaster. Calling him secretive and controlling isn’t imo personal if it goes to the heart of why he has been a disaster. Look at all the reports from the civil service coming out saying how difficult it has been to work with no10. He doesn’t listen to almost anyone but Balls when it comes to the economy.. nuff said.
I think Brown is a negative amongst a large number of the floating voters the Tories want to attract, and noting that he may be better liked amongst left leaning voters, while possibly true, is irrelevant since these voters will never vote Tory anyway.
I agree though that just to depend Brown is a bad idea.
The few leaflets I’ve had through the door from Labour, Brown has been completely absent. Lots of Harriet this, London Labour that.
20. Holy sh1t, he really does speak like HAL!
“I know I’ve made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I’ve still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you.”
43. “Gordon Brown would be ‘a fu king disaster’ in the role of prime minister.” John Hutton MP.
46 - It’s an interesting thesis that you have about David Cameron, but devoid of any backing facts.
The leader of the Lib Dems will normally get decent approval ratings with high “don’t knows”, in the same way that the public will usually respond positively (if without any great emotional involvement) to pictures of koalas. I wouldn’t read much into Nick Clegg’s abilities from those figures.
I agree with your comments about a regional angle to this negative stuff. Labour may keep the same number of seats in Scotland and be obliterated off the face of the map in large parts of the south of England.
This proposition strikes me as not being a simple binary option.
Is Cameron a positive for the Tories? YES would be my answer, despite any pinch-off with his ratings.
Do some voters harbour doubts? YES would again be the answer. They see that the country is in a mess (see Populus) and they are not sure that it can be fixed.
Are Labour wise to attack Cameron based on their private polling (see Sky report)? NO. He is still an asset in the way that Gordon Brown is a liability - not as much as before but the effect is still there.
Is Brown a negative for Labour? YES and the party realises it, with the new advert on Political Advertising not showing anything about Brown ( http://politicaladvertising.co.uk/2010/02/07/labour-party-advert-family-economy/ )
Would the Tories be wise to go big on it? NO, for national negative campaigning only works when it is in tune with the political mood. For example The Mummy Returns worked with Hague whereas Demon Eyes didn’t with Blair. In terms of local door-step campaigning than absolutely along with the occasional speech (see yesterday’s) can work well. And Nick Robinson last night saw the effect of “Brown Five More Years?” on one of the areas where Labour should do well.
I know the Tories have done some of this negative campaigning but it was mid-term. We are now in the election end-game and there is a desperate need for a positive message. That was the attempt of the Tory poster and they didn’t quite pull it off. Labour’s is so desperately attack-based they may end-up getting the Nasty Party tag, the smell of which takes a long time to wash away.
44. I’d pay a considerable sum of money for Cameron to start doing the internationally recognised “w**ker” gesture at Brown, during PMQs.
51. ‘Allowing Gordon Brown into No 10 would be like letting Mrs Rochester out of the attic’
Frank Field
46 - Here is an example of Camerons comedy gift to the nation, and the impact of the internet.
Far more effective than any attack ad.
Using what appeared to be an air-brushed photo of David Cameron for a Tory advertising campaign was always going to be a risky move.
But nobody at Conservative headquarters could have predicted quite how ridiculed their ‘Year Of Change’ election drive would become.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1249616/Airbrushed-change-spoofs-David-Camerons-election-poster-swamp-web.html#ixzz0f2rzJkFX
What time will Brown and Clegg be voting to gerrymander the electoral system?
Did Gordon’s new PR “guru” used to work for Turkish Airlines?
http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2010/02/unfortunate-advertising.html
Well, he acts like he has genuine emotions. Um, of course we’ve programmed that way to make it easier for us to talk to him, but as to whether or not he has real feelings is something I don’t think anyone can truthfully answer.
51 dr spyn - Perhaps with the strapline: “You were right, John. Vote Conservative.”
56 tim
funnily enough I could see Cameron laughing at some of the Posters whereas Brown would go into a sulk in the same situation.
53: As seen in lists of best and worst PM’s it’s possible to be an asset, and a liability at the same time.
51 Well, he got that right. He should have added “and as Chancellor of the Exchequer.”
Brown is car-crash awful. Think YouTube, think PMQs, think that gurning fake smile. He makes you fall asleep or want to scream just listening to him, he has no charm, no chraisma, no humour, nothing.
Cameron is miles better, I can see how he rubs some people up the wrong way and I wish he could de-poshify his voice just a little, but he’s basically a nice bloke with sincerity and the ability to think on his feet.
Brown 2/10
cameron 7/10
Clegg 5/10 - can be v annoying but much more “normal” than Brown
56 Brown, however, would still be thrilled to have Cameron’s ratings.
56 - It would be helpful if you could tell me which of those I’m supposed to find amusing. They might help keep Labour morale up, but that’s about it.
65 - Clegg wouldn’t.
Alternative views for Camerons decline are always accepted with neutrality and impartiality, but the decline is factual.
64 - Ye Gods, you are asking him to copy the New Labour Estuarine glottal? Posh is infinitely preferable to that.
So is authentic, more to the point.
Tribalism and the echo chamber mentality is powerful stuff so I’m glad that on the whole, Tory voters are still in possession of their critical faculties.
Brown is a vote loser, everyone knows it - and Labour thought Tony was the ‘problem’
The political cartoonist on the DP said he couldn’t do one of Clegg because he had no idea who he was. That’s Clegg’s problem - although I suspect if he did, he’d depict him as a self-righteous school prefect.
I’m interested in how the poster meme develops - will it move onto the rest of the front team? It would certainly be an interesting strategy that I don’t recall any other party doing.
Final thoughts:
Labour are stuffed with Brown, if they use him - it reminds people who has been at the tiller for the last 13yrs, if they hide him away - it’s Where’s Gordon? Checkmate.
Clegg will get more coverage but it’ll be chaff once the tanks are deployed on both sides - I have less idea now about what they stand for than before - that’s quite a feat.
Cameron - hmm. I’d give him 8/10 right now - he does PMish well, I wouldn’t be embarrassed to see him represent us [which I can't say for Brown or Clegg] and he does sober toughness well.
This thread ties in with the previous one “Is it because the marginals ARE different?” - which might have been better turned the other way round “Is it because the safe seats ARE different?”
What makes a safe seat is that a large majority of voters in it are culturally, economically and socially cohesive. Hence all their social interactions reinforce their common political narrative. They are all large examples of “group think”.
Those who are “deviant”, from that group think, are essentially disenfranchised.
It also explains all the silly posts that appear here and elsewhere saying “the country” or “everyone I know” thinks X,Y or Z. All they are actually saying is that “my group” thinks in that way - which we knew already from their voting patterns.
In some marginal seats, there may be two or three such cohesive socio/political groupings who don’t interact with each other, and results are much more likely to be affected by differential turnout rather than leadership/policy/rhetoric.
In other marginals, people hear different political narratives, and are much more aware of these.
It would be interesting to hear from other Scots (yes I know!) whether their experience is similar to mine. While we all have our partisan preferences, we would probably agree on the strengths and weaknesses of the various Scots and UK party leaders - partly because we hear these different narratives regularly, and can understand how different people view them.
68-He can even pretend to have followed a football team all his life. And stowed away on a flight to Barbados to show his street cred. Now, who was that again?
56: Problem is tim, if you find them funny, then you probably won’t vote for the tories anyway. It’s not going to alter or change anyones viewpoint becuase it says nothing new.
I know your attack line at the moment is ‘lets turn dave into a figure of fun, and make people laugh at him’. A nice core vote thing, but doesn’t change anything.
59. “Just what do you think you’re doing, Dave?”
56 tim
Had missed those before!! Some are quite funny, some a bit ??? but surely more or less any political poster could be doctored in thsi day and age. I don’t think it will change many votes
69 Plato
Nick Clegg = Percy Weasley ?
54 - Well Brown already publicly does the wanchor gesture himself (to himself)
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/arts/2007/05/15/brownbig.jpg
“if you find them funny, then you probably won’t vote for the tories anyway.”
Well, no. You can find them funny, and still vote for the Tories. As noted above, one can’t imagine the Mentalist in Chief meeting those with anything other than a shower of broken Nokia parts.
However, Tim’s problem is that he’s desperate for the “laughing at Cameron” meme to take hold. It’s not.
Just catching up on the 2nd episode of Tower Block of Commons. Tim Loughton seems like a genuinely decent chap. Compared to the vile Austin Mitchell, anyway.
56. Skittish, Tim. Very skittish!
56 You don’t get it, do you, Tim? Cameron could not have bought that amount of publicity and interest for £10 million. The fact that people might gently mock their leaders doesn’t necessarily mean that they despise them. Is there anyone out there in the wonderful world of the interweb who doesn’t know who David Cameron is? I bet the Lib Dems wish that they had thought of doing it first!
@43. A picture of salvatore mundi with the words “5 MORE years?”
should do the job nicely
Is this the point where Gordo breaks down on Piers?
“I know I’ve made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I’ve still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you. “
56. The once occasionally amusing “tim” is reduced to cutting and pasting from a Daily Mail article which itself cuts and pastes from a Labour website which cuts and pastes from a Tory poster, and sticks a funny nose on.
Oh dear, tim. What happened?
Coming after your angry description of… Nick Clegg…. “tearing Cameron a new one”, perhaps the most embarrassingly adolescent and ridiculous remark ever to grace pb, I am starting to sense a Tim Malfunction.
77 - It’s like the Tory allies in Europe meme.
It bored most of us senseless, and shifted precisely zero votes.
77: Some are witty true. But only in the silly knockabout sense like this blog often is.
76 TSE
LOL !
now all that’s missing is the caption.
“Have five more years of this “
82 - apols to diane at 50, that’ll teach me to skim-read…
You can put a question to Ed Balls, I’m sure everyone here will want to participate!
http://timesonline.typepad.com/schoolgate/2010/02/come-and-ask-ed-balls-your-questions-and-take-our-education-poll-.html
Completely OT, but with the number of MPs likely to be shrunk and consequently constituencies getting bigger and more equal, I was interested in finding out which parts of the country are growing/shrinking.
Top 10 Town Growth rates 91-08:
Oxford, Grays,Cambridge, Livingston, Loughborough, Bletchley, Colchester, Aylesbury, Exeter, Ashford
Towns shrinking fastest:
Burnley, Moreton, Crosby, Runcorn, bebington, Gateshead, Washington, Salford, Birkenhead, Bootle
Can you see the pattern?
Of the big cities (over 150k), the ones shrinking are: Glasgow, Liverpool, Belfast, Stoke, Sunderland, Walsall and Dundee.
The fastest growing big cities are: Oxford, Southampton, Manchester, London, Bristol, Cardiff, Portsmouth and Swindon.
88-I forgot to say that it is happening now…
84-Not true. Made me even more likely to vote Tory.
CCHQ need to emply the photoshop talents of Martin Day.
Picture of a toilet bowl. Gordon’s gurning face disappearing down it.
Underneath: “On May 6th - Flush Gordon.”
If Brown were an asset to his party, Labour wouldn’t have spent most of the last two and a half years trying to get rid of him (after the PLP ‘electing’ him close to unanimously). He is slowly getting better at some of the presentational stuff but not much and not quickly enough.
What really matters is what swing voters think of the respective leaders, parties and policies. It doesn’t make any difference if lots of people like Gordon if they were all going to vote Labour anyway.
Labour told off by the Info Commissioner for guess what? Yes, automated phone-calling… I don’t know ANYONE who thinks these are a good idea except those with small budgets and lazy marketeers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/feb/09/labour-broke-rules-phone-calls
91 - You’re probably right.
I think the high point of it all was when some labour cretins tried to tell the Chief Rabbi of Poland what was anti-semitism
95, that was quite an epic failure. Did Bedpans lead there, or was he following the footsoldiers from the Bunker?
89-6 of those in Merseyside. 3in Tyneside.
96 - I think Bedpans did lead the charge of the light in the head brigade.
88 lol Me @ 1:52 have you seen some of the questions..
e.g.
tell me ed, how can you look people in the face when you and your wife DID WHAT YOU DID WITH OUT TAX MONEY. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE A GOOD EXAMPLE TO OUR YOUNGSTERS
83 Yup - tim = Gabble and desperately seeking attention by reposting the same stories about Joanne Cash.
And to think he started at 06:43 this morning with a link to the above story…
http://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2010/02/09/is-it-because-the-marginals-are-different/#comment-1418715
I still prefer a made up poster i saw a while back.
Brown in a bulldozer crane with ball and “Exchequer Wrecker” under it.
Btw, for those into F1, I may have spotted a cunning observation made elsewhere on the interweb which could prove handy for betting.
I’d say more, but I need to see the Jerez test results to verify (ish) the suggestion. Naturally I’ll hat tip the place I saw the info.
The Labour Party breached privacy regulations by using automated phone calls to nearly 500,000 people, the information commissioner has said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8506300.stm
83 Even Coldstone’s got more style than tim now.
I thought it was a good yardstick that Labour thought they’d had a *better* January than the Tories despite yet another attempt to stage a leadership coup
Limbo dancing under the expectations bar, me thinks.
From Politics home AV poll.
On the question of why Gordon Brown changed his mind on electoral reform:
70% of people think that Brown changed his mind through political calculation; 8% believe he is genuinely convinced of the merits of electoral reform.
http://www.politicshome.com/uk/article/5503/new_poll_public_divided_on_change_to_voting_system.html
100 - Paul Waugh has now picked up on it and its more chaotic than we first thought.
The Tory party was scrambling to rescue the career of one of David Cameron’s favourite women candidates today after her campaign for a key London
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23803780-david-camerons-a-lister-twitters-against-party-dinosaurs.do
Trade deficit - why are the politicians not taking it seriously ?
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/edmundconway/100003591/britains-everlasting-deficit/
Oh dear. Chris Huhne has this piece in the Grauniad
The alternative vote is not the solution
But they will vote for it anyway !!! Labour lap dogs again, begging for table scraps.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/09/alternative-vote-not-the-solution
104 - “Even Coldstone’s got more style than tim now.”
Oh thats harsh..!
106 The public aren’t stupid - the Bunker Echo Chamber seems to have forgotten that bit.
It’s so obvious, it’s embarrassing - if I were a Labour activist/MP I’d be cringing.
Gordon picks the worst option yet again, and this time looks desperate.
@106:
Not only is his calculation transparent, he’s also wrong.
One might expect one never expects to lose overestimating the stupidity of Liberal Democrat politicians, but in this case Gordon just might.
95 Alanbrooke
77 “However, Tim’s problem is that he’s desperate for the “laughing at Cameron” meme to take hold. It’s not.”
It is so patently the way that tim operates. Take an opponents strength or your own weakness - and try and make it apply the other way round to gain equivalence - and so negate the value to your opponent. People are clearly not laughing at Cameron. They might shake their heads in pity and think “why would any tw@ want to take on the country in this state?” But Gordon is comedy gold. He fills a half hour of Mock The Week all on his own.
It’s almost worth voting to keep Gordon in place, as some grand National Object of Ridicule. Imagine what he could do to tickle our ribs given five more years of ineptitude?
But then you think, no - he’s just destroying the country. My country. So just bugger off Gordon. Bugger off right now.
It’s nice to see an article that goes against the popular cult of personal attacks, even from the practical point of view. I’m by no means sure of Brown’s competence, but I tend to warm to him as he is more and more attacked for his personality, not his policies or their implementation. You’ll note, too, that the personal (not political) attacks are almost entirely from those that don’t know him personally – what does that tell you? Of course, this is nothing new; I remember large numbers of politicians of all parties being similarly vilified. But it doesn’t make it any easier to tolerate. (I’m not a Labour activist or even voter.) I hope not to read a plethora of comments along the lines of “That’s politics”; we all know that, but should it be?
111. Caught in the spam trap. Lib Dem spokesman who has said they will vote for it has article saying it’s the wrong answer…
http://tinyurl.com/yl662z3
67 I don’t know. Clegg gets 10% as favoured PM, and Cameron gets 32%. I don’t think Clegg would be at all unhappy with Cameron’s rating.
I and others have pointed out to you repeatedly that Cameron’s ratings, down slightly from their peak, are still way above where they were prior to the Summer of 2008.
pobedonoscev @ 114
You’ll note, too, that the personal (not political) attacks are almost entirely from those that don’t know him personally
I take it that he and Charles Clarke (to choose one at random) have neer had the pleasure of meeting each other.
News just in: Brown revealed to be big Red Dwarf fan:
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/5337/scotchgordonbrown2.jpg
114 pobedonscev
Brown (or Labours) policies have been discussed and ridiculed for ages now.
10p tax for just one example (I can’t be bothered to type out the whole depressing list).
113 Loved the joke on Mock the Week when after joking about the fact the Cameron’s piccy had been airbrushed, one guy said hang on a minute, what about Gordon?
He couldn’t wait for Gordon’s face on an NHS poster saying, ‘Catch it. Kill it. Bin it’.
Polly Toynbee writes
Tory cuts pave the way for a return to 80s dole queues
Conservative plans to axe longer term support suggest they still think unemployment is a price worth paying for ideology
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/09/tory-cuts-recession-youth-unemployment
“Labour Poster Attacks ‘Two-Faced’ Cameron”
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Politics/Labour-Poster-Attacks-David-Cameron-On-NHS-Campaign-Accuses-Tory-Leader-Of-Being-Two-Faced/Article/201002215545449?lpos=Politics_First_Poilitics_Article_Teaser_Regi_2&lid=ARTICLE_15545449_Labour_Poster_Attacks_David_Cameron_On_NHS%3A_Campaign_Accuses_Tory_Leader_Of_Being_Two-Faced
114 Hmm - well there seem to be a lot of Cabinet and ministerial colleagues who have said so - perhaps Lord Turnbull is a good example of someone with personal knowledge and no political axe to grind?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6469293.stm
“In the FT interview, Lord Turnbull said of Mr Brown’s relationship with his colleagues: “He cannot allow them any serious discussion about priorities. His view is that it is just not worth it and ‘they will get what I decide’.
“And that is a very insulting process.”
He said this strategy had enhanced Treasury control but had come “at the expense of any government cohesion and any assessment of strategy”.
“He’s (Lord Turnbull) a bit of a stickler for convention and doesn’t like things done in a rude way
Michael Portillo
Ex-Tory MP”
Lord Turnbull added: “You can choose whether you are impressed or depressed by that, but you cannot help admire the sheer Stalinist ruthlessness of it all.”
He said “the chancellor has a Macavity quality. He is not there when there is dirty work to be done”.
However, he praised Mr Brown for his move to allow the Bank of England to be independent.
He added that what surprised him about the Treasury was “the more or less complete contempt with which other colleagues are held”.
Departments were told only at the last minute what their Budget settlement would be, he added, claiming the man who expected to be the next prime minister used denial of information as an “instrument of power”.
The problem for the Tories coming up to the election is that Gordon has never played by the rules. Therefore they are stuck using Queensbury rules against a cage fighter, unless they go dirty.
Whatever us members of the Tory herd can think up, Brown’s henchmen can get ten times as dirty (don’t forget the charming Mr Whelan and Dolly).
However, at a time when an incoming government will be forced to slash our allowance, and stop us going out on the weekend, there has to be more to the campaign than Gordon is horrible.
Surely the only way to make Gurning Gord the star of the Official Tory campaign is to focus on his track record, not his character. What the Blogs/Others get up to is another matter.
118 smeeeg heeed
114 A lot of people who ‘know him personallly’ have been on the rough end of the dirty tricks.
The surprising thing to Labour MPs about the smearmails was that they thought all such operations were all directed at them.
@122:
So you can exclusively confirm that a relentlessly negative campaign of hateful attack ads is Labour’s last, great hope for making people feel good about Labour?
Good luck with that, you f*cking spoons.
122 gabble
have you thought of running one called Demon Eyes ?
and does Gordon tuck his shirt inside his underpants ?
it’s deja vu all over again.
I have a perfectly innocent on topic post in the sin bin, que?
Brown is the Tories’ biggest asset, not because the electorate share their reflexive hatred of him, but because he has shown a consistent ability to put his foot in it.
So many of Brown’s travails are self-inflicted, the most obvious example being the 10p tax debacle. I’m sure people can think of many more.
Of course, if he does, somehow, manage to avoid making a similar blunder over the next few months, this might present a problem for the Tories, particularly if they turn their ire on Brown personally.
It’s not who he is, it is what he has done.
126, also, the NHS is moronic ground for Labour to attack Cameron personally.
116 - Simply not true Sean, they were higher in 2006 than they are today, and they are down 18% in 7 months.
122: Is that their poster???
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Oh dear….half of people will go past in a train or car and only see the David Cameron: We are committed to the NHS bit…it’s even highlighted more!!
Labour really are stupid.
126. Martin Coxall
Did you hear Cameron’s personal attack on the PM yesterday?
At least the Labour poster attacks Cameron on policy.
133 - At least the Labour poster attacks Cameron on policy.
yeah, makes a change from smearing his.
Well done on that.
133 - At least the Labour poster attacks Cameron on policy.
McBride.
134 - His = Him
127 They are really crap posters - complex message and too many words. Attacking Cameron doesn’t work as we’ve seen numerous times and it says nothing positive about Labour.
I hope Labour have paid for these - they’d be better off sticking them on a website and asking for contributions instead.
If we ever actually see these deployed I’d be interested - Not Flash, Just Gordon was only ever an internet one-off event.
122. Compare and contrast
http://www.spectator.co.uk/article_images/articledir_7136/3568481/1_fullsize.jpg
@133:
There’s a difference between answering a question on the news and relentless negative campaigning.
Do you think negative campaigning is (a) effective, or (b) the last gasp of a desperate party?
132. That’s a good, and hilarious point.
133. Gabble, was John Hutton ‘misquoted’?
Tagged onto Gabble’s link
Marketing expert Jonathan Gabay told Sky News Online the “playground politics” response from Labour risked alienating voters.
He said: “The problem with this approach is that the electorate will be subjected to a series of ‘he said - we say’ campaigns which hold the real and present danger of not making one political brand or the other particularly distinctive.”
He said both parties would benefit from marketing a “straight-forward message” which accentuates their differences.
133 gabble
does it ?
of course the fun thing now we have a poster is does it do the job ?
To me this advertises to the doubting right wing of the Tories that Cameron is after all the Hard man they fear he isn,t !
So Labour risk strengthening Cameron against UKIP and doubters.
OWN GOAL BY LABOUR ?
122
The NHS is just cancer specialists?
And I’d be worried that you are resorting to “Demon Eyes” so damn early. That’s something to use if desperate.
Oh.
Labour’s new poster seems to be resorting to the make up Tory policy and attack it school as espoused by Brown recently.
The Times - February 1 -http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article7013783.ece
Philip Hammond, the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, says…could be saved immediately through proposals to cut child trust funds for better off families and stop child tax credits for households on incomes above £50,000.
Gordon Brown - Guardian Interview 7th February -http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/feb/07/gordon-brown
“The Conservatives now say they will remove the child trust fund from any family with an income above £16,000,” he says. “So basically anybody who’s got an income of more than £16,000 will lose this benefit.
“Then they say that a couple where one is earning £16,000 and the other £15,0000 – so the joint income is £31,000 – that you will lose your tax credit.
122. Thanks for posting the link to the poster. The trouble for Labour is that it doesn’t work well. Most people read and look from left to right. “Positive” Dave is on the left side, with nice face, in colour with brighter writing; with the message “We are committed to the NHS”.
“Negative” Dave is on the right, harder to see, with a complicated message.
Most people will only see the left side – so I’d say a failure.
The Demon eyes posters were OTT and therefore ridiculous.
Whereas the PR veneer of Cameron’s Conservatives is obvious and IMO it’s worth testing how deep the trendiness/soft focus goes.
* It was great that he biked to work. It was less great that the chauffeur followed behind.
* He claims to be a regular guy a non-politician, yet was a SpAd straight out of uni. If he wins he will be the first SpAd PM.
* “Vote Blue go Green” on the one hand on the other Nigel Lawson.
And so on. Totally valid in a GE campaign.
It’s a hilariously bad poster…
D
139. Martin Coxall
Of course negative campaigning is effective if it’s aim is to expose a truth. Cameron is two-faced, shallow and wobbly, this poster highlights and exploits those weaknesses.
The format invites attacks against Cameron on other issues aswell.
149 - So you’re not going to fighting on your record?
145 As noted on the previous thread - that’s exactly what Burnham did in his press conference.
Labour creates policy strawman and then claims the Tories would slash it on ‘day one’.
They seem to be hoping that the public will believe these mirages are real - now if I had cancer for example, and I read Labour’s claims thinking they were true, I’d want to know why I didn’t get that service.
No win - making up policies that directly impact on sick people is a stupid idea, it’s cynical and they either know better/get peed off thinking they’ve missed out/feel they are being used as pawns.
Some people won’t even take the negative part as negative. We know government imposes these guarantees / limits on the NHS, and that by doing so there are often serious knock-on effects. It also plays up the government top down approach, which so many people are seriously pi$$ed of with.
The Labour poster is negative which is not something I think the public want. I’m fully expecting the next phase of Robinson’s testing the pulse to be “reservations” over the Tories, so it’s all about positivity. Compare and contrast 1997 - Tories negative, Labour positive in the front line messages (yes I know behind the scenes, but these campaigns have two parts).
With the Tory January posters, we had several punters of a Labour persuasion saying that there were two messages. So what do Labour do? They put up two messages including an area that Cameron has actually pulled the Tories into the lead on (or level dependent on poll) and puts it up on a poster. Sheer madness.
139 - Martin.
The shift to the negative campaign against Brown was a sign that the Tories had wasted and messed up the whole of January with their bungled policy announcements, so in a sense you are right.
147 Jonathan
you cannot see the irony in your own argument - ” PR veneer “.
Indeed with hindsight the Demon Eyes though crap at the time is starting to look remarkably prescient. The country and Labour were all taken in.
Also hasn’t recent polling showed that Cameron is more trusted than Brown on the NHS?
Its a dreadful poster.
Contrast that dark black negative Labour poster with a cheerful colourful tory one.
Which one is going to catch your eye. this labour campaign can’t even afford colour now, are they that broke.
150. TSE
Labour will do both - as will the tories.
It’s a little disingenuous of tories to champion Cameron as the sole face of their campaign and then complain when Labour meet that challenge head-on.
Perhaps Gordon Brown could be pictured in some way which highlights his warm personality, his vibrant (privately done) smile, love of schooling and education and his commitment to his core values.
http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://pendulumopinions.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/gordon-brown_543639a1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://pendulumopinions.wordpress.com/2009/05/06/step-1-in-being-a-successful-politician/&usg=__uEG_LXeSkkVFCLNlLaPvGkOW3ok=&h=350&w=585&sz=27&hl=en&start=2&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=6cHSHvaAvnNyLM:&tbnh=81&tbnw=135&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbrown%2Band%2Bswastika%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4TSEA_en-GBGB308GB309%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1
138
Oh dear, not only do they nick Tory policies, they nick Tory posters……
The chief problems with the Labour poster are as follows:
1) David Cameron is strong on the NHS. This attack looks unworthy.
2) “David Camera On” is witless.
3) The poster is relentlessly negative and doesn’t have a single positive Labour message. Starting negative is hardly a good place for the governing party to lead off from.
4) The message takes some decoding. A casual glance suggests that it’s a Tory poster.
Tim sounds more and more like a cross between Toilets Muckguire and Charlie Whelan every day!
Recession, what recession?
BBC executives’ expenses up by 8 per cent
Expense claims by the BBC’s top executives have risen sharply despite previous assurances that the corporation was tightening its grip on spending, newly-released figures show.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/7196332/BBC-executives-expenses-up-by-8-per-cent.html
158 - Oh I think it’s brilliant Labour are attacking Cameron head on.
This election will be won on the comparison of Cameron against Brown.
Oh and one more thing on the poster. There appears to be another Brownie. There is no right to 2 weeks, but a target. Very different things. Labour telling porkies? Who would have thought it… Dodgy Dossier, McBride etc… So coming back to the topic, Brown and his Brownies are very big targets to aim at. Do that quietly and hammer home a positive message.
FSA’s chief executive Hector Sants quits
Hector Sants has quit as the chief executive of the City’s top regulator.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/7195473/FSAs-chief-executive-Hector-Sants-quits.html
Rats jumping the ship?
161 antifrank
and the right wing of the Tory party want to hear a harder message and this sort of delivers it for them.
161. Yes, it’s terrible. The incompetence of the Labour media machine is remarkable.
162 - That is Libelous
the tories second biggest asset.
http://order-order.com/2010/02/09/school-children-exposed-to-balls/
oh dear, where did guido get that photograph from?
The idiocy for me of that message is that it equates one small part of what the NHS does with “The NHS”.
It basically says that to refuse any funding for any type of treatment on the NHS menas you aren’t committed to it. And that is clearly a ridiculous position, and one I don’t think even Labour would be able to live up to.
167 - That’s a very good point. Shoring up the Tories’ support with UKIP dilettantes can hardly have been Labour’s intention.
158 gabble
I’m a bit surprised Labour didn’t immediatley come back with a poster extolling Gordon Brown.
Any reason for that ?
162 The Mirror are reporting that ’senior Tories’ are disappointed that their posters didn’t do very well.
Yeah, right…
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/02/09/toxic-tories-115875-22028953/
“Senior Tories privately admit a £400,000 poster campaign last month was not as successful as they’d hoped. Mr Cameron has also axed plans to seek a meeting with Barack Obama, who would only have seen him briefly, in case it was seen as a snub.
Tories who are chosen to fight safe seats are overwhelmingly white, male and with no public sector experience, according to new research last night.”
Frankly, I do wonder for the sanity of some Mirror journalists.
oops
http://order-order.com/2010/02/09/school-children-exposed-to-balls/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+guidofawkes+%28Guy+Fawkes%27+blog+of+parliamentary+plots%2C+rumours+and+conspiracy%29&utm_content=Twitter
“with no public sector experience”
Why is that a bad thing?
169 - against which of the 3?
174 - I doubt anyone thinks the poster was a success.
177 - Against all 3.
Think of it as two footballers going in for a tackle with both feet of the ground.
159/175
A timely reminder of this perhaps.
http://tinyurl.com/create.php
The greatest asset an opposition has, ‘Time’ it always eventually works in the oppositions favour.
I quite like the Labour poster actually. It cleverly attacks Cameron and at least attempts to get a policy message across.
I’m just not sure it will resonate much beyond the Labour faithful.
174 Plato
Tories who are chosen to fight safe seats are overwhelmingly white, male and with no public sector experience, according to new research last night.”
Yes, at least Jim Devine had some public sector experience.
122 Ludicrous. Cameron is trusted on the NHS. This is about as convincing as “wants to barbecue and eat your children”.
And raises the question why the tories put their party leader on their posters, but labour don’t.
And fails to make sense at a fairly basic level, since the right hand side seems to be a photograph of DC “camera off”. ???
Conclusion: Labour cannot afford a real advertising agency and have bought Dolly Draper a copy of Photoshop Elements instead.
180 - That’s the best link you’ve ever posted on here. Probably because it doesn’t work
184 - TSE you mean you click on coldstone’s url’s ? wow
183 I’m not sure they have the budget - probably an evaluation copy - that means an April election
Going negative is a perfectly legitimate tactic and probably all that a tired old government can do. It is also a risky tactic and needs tending loving care to work.
A poster with two faces is an attack as old as politics. Highlighting the ‘good’ bit and greying out the ‘bad’ bit is idiocy of the highest order. What fool designed it?
175 its truly outstanding how incompetent this lot are !
175 Plato
that has to be the funniest thing this week !
How can “The Thick of it” outdo that ?
Ballot for Gordon Brown’s Iraq inquiry appearance
….the inquiry team has confirmed that it will be early in March.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8506133.stm
Perhaps Labour needs to move away from a personality cult.
Apologies fot the misplaced consonent.
185 - I could tell by the URL it was a duff link.
I always find it amusing, he spends his time scouring the internet for vaguely anti-tory articles, rather than checking the thread, and finding it that it has already been posted.
It’s amusing that anyone can design a poster in which if you glance at it reads:
David Cameron: We are committed to the NHS.
Most people wont even read the second part!!
If thats what Labour has….again HAHAHAHAHA….
174. Well we know ’senior Tories’ actually means the Labour spin machine so that crock of sh*t can safely be ignored.
184
It works for me!
Probably why I’ll be voting for Clegg.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/feb/09/prime-ministers-religion-god
“What fool designed it?”
Somebody who thought that “in the shadows” meant “hard to read”….
I say again - this poster fails because it dilutes Labour’s NHS attacks. It equates looking after the NHS with just one particular type of medical treatment. It makes it look like they are struggling to find examples of where Cameron will “destroy the NHS and kill people”.
Off-topic, but hilarious - the Grauniad at its po-faced best:
‘Super Bowl commercials sell sexism’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/feb/08/super-bowl-commercials
181 Labour will be happy if it resonates with 2005 Labour voters. They don’t need Tories to like it.
It is a charming idea that any Labour poster could ever appeal to the PB Tories. They even thought the Tory Cameron poster was good, despite being it being mercilessly sent up.
174 “…with no public sector experience, according to new research last night.”
Is that supposed to be a BAD thing?
With humble apologies both for going off topic, and for posting a North of the border story, there are probably some betting hints here
Going by the last set of polls, if the election was held today, Labour in Scotland would gain 3 seats, an increase of 7.7% while in England and Wales Labour would lose 108 seats, a decrease of 35%. It is a remarkable juxtaposition for a party that is already losing its way.
Many conclusions can be drawn from this. Scots really, really dislike Tories, Tony Blair was more right of centre than Brown, the SNP is struggling to make inroads in UK elections and the Scottish Lib Dems are in freefall.
It is perhaps worth dwelling on that last point as, per Electoral Calculus, it is the Lib Dems who are losing seats to Labour (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey and Dunbartonshire East) and the Tories (Argyll & Bute and Berwickshire, Roxburgh & Selkirk) on a lacklustre 11% compared to a healthier 20% down south. Similarly, the Tories are managing 18% up North but soaring at 40% across the UK as a whole. The prospect of the Tories overhauling the SNP as the country’s second party seems remote, despite being the top party in Wales and England respectively.
http://www.snptacticalvoting.com/2010/02/labours-union-dividend.html
Try this
http://tinyurl.com/
O/T
Hope someone elso got on spic n Span, tipped at 5/2 came in at 2/1
186 “probably an evaluation copy - that means an April election” LOL
197 - Don’t forget they also think that the “Compare the Meerkat” adverts are racist!
198 Jonathan
it’s 2010 in case you haven’t noticed and Labour’s fielding Brown.
201 coldstone - I believe the interweb expression is EPIC FAIL.
Well Mike it worked in 1992 when cavassing a seat the Conservatives expected to lose (Battersea). We always started talking about Kinnock with wavering voters. It worked (almost) every time and we held the seat.
Brown is a liability and I expect the more the electorate get to know him the more they will realise that. But the Conservative attacks should in the run up to a GE being called major on the folly of Labour’s policies not the manifest failings of the PM.
talking about going negative,newsnight seems to be right on board with labour,last night we had the ashcroft question and then we had a negative report on the tories school policy.
and now we have this from labour love-in,mr crick,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/michaelcrick/2010/02/how_av_made_cameron_tory_leade.html#comments
Oh Dear!
http://tinyurl.com/yz5czzh
So since we’ve had Gordon v Dave there have been:
-Not Flash, Just Gordon. Which was good.
-Chameleon. Bad.
-Public School Boys in Top Hats attacking….Public School Boys. Bad.
-The Fox Gets It. So, so. Humour.
-The weird one with the boxer. Very Bad.
-Why we are Labour PPB. Which was OK, apart from the errors.
Is it poor advertising types being retained by labour or are they getting poor guidance from the bunker team?
Brown is clearly the tories biggest asset.
Do Labour supporters see him as an asset to their party? I wouldn’t have thought so.
201. thanks.
202. Blue Rog. Yes thanks
“The weird one with the boxer. Very Bad.”
That’s probably my all time favourite. Vote Tory, and they’ll come round and beat you up.
What we want is organsation something that Brown and his cohorts just cannot do. They lurch from one disaster to the next never truly in control of events but trying hard to appear that they are.
Latest is a major cock up on a government website on a promotion titled safe Internet day. This warns mothers and children to beware of the dangers of the internet. When googled apparently according to Guido (hat tip)=
“So what is Ball’s doing to protect children? Well his campaign “Buster’s World” directed children, and their extremely irate mothers toward a gay fetish porn site. Instead of a fluffy, tail-wagging friendly dog who guides children safely around the internet they were greeted by gay men doing very odd things with balloons”
It’s this sort of thing that does makes Brown and Balls the Tories biggest asset and I still maintain Labour are not going to get beaten they are going to be totally slaughtered. Sub 200 and that will be on a good day and I don’t care what the polls are saying get on the ground and listen and you will know the armageddon that is now aproaching the Labour party. Its only a matter of time and with not enough time to ditch the loser the dye is cast.
Its over and they know it.
210 - Yes, I’ll say this for the latest poster, it’s better than the strange Chameleon one.
215 Batch File
I think Ed should maybe change his name to Buster.
“Buster Balls he thinks outside the box ”
make a nice poster.
131 http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/leaders/cameron
Unless Anthony Wells is very wrong, Camron’s Yougov ratings in the Telegraph ranged from 38-42%, and his MORI ratings ranged from 25-33%. The current ratings are 47%, and 43%, respectively.
218 In 2006, that is.
209 I can’t imagine many PBers are going to bother at the third attempt.
200 It is a complete waste of time and effort into reading anything into the TNS/System 3 polls . In the run up to the 2005 GE they were confidently predicting the LibDems would lose seats in Scotland with 13/14% of the vote . Their face to face polling with no past vote or likelihood to vote weighting is a recipe fot inaccurate poll results .
Ok folks, that Labour poster is terrible. Not only is it negative, it’s negative in a very crass sense. What are they essentially saying? That David Cameron doesn’t CARE if you die from cancer? Do they seriously think anybody is going to believe that.
I can marginally see the reasoning, though poor, behind the toff jibes. But trying to paint him as as cold and callous simply isn’t going to work.
For all those criticizing Labour for going negative, I’ve heard from a Labour friend that they are also planning a poster emphasizing Gordon’s earthy, unspun qualities. Apparently it will show a somewhat unflattering picture of Gordon next to one of Susan Boyle with the caption, ‘Admit it. When you judged by appearances you didn’t think she had hidden talents either.’ Could be a good ploy this - the use of a folk heroine from contemporary culture, the emphasis of talent over looks. Not a bad idea at all!
Jonathan @ 198
They even thought the Tory Cameron poster was good, despite being it being mercilessly sent up.
All political posters will be sent up. It is not measure of success. In fact, the simpler the message, the easier to do a spoof, (at the same time the better the poster). Besides, even I, a man whose blood runs blue (not royal I hasten to add) found some of the send ups hilarious.
223 SD
yeah except I’d sooner elect Subo as PM than Brown. Which seat is she standing in ?
Stark Dawning @ 223
Yes but Susan Boyle put herself forward for election, she didn’t have to be forced.
222 - “That David Cameron doesn’t CARE if you die from cancer? Do they seriously think anybody is going to believe that.”
Some readers of and writers for the Mirror perhaps? But then they probably already think that.
223
That’s actually very good.
Although it does also bring to mind some of the reports saying that the woman was have a bit of a mental breakdown…….
217 and change his surnane to Gonad.
223 You are kidding? Trying to use Susan Boyle’s coat-tails would be fantastic for “I don’t do celebrities” Gordon.
And of course, Simon Cowell wouldn’t be very impressed either since SuBo has been polished up on several fronts.
223. That is, quite literally, the NAFFEST thing I have ever heard of in my life.
Surely Syco own her image rights anyway?
Here’s the worst PPB ever.
http://www.youtube.com/user/theuklabourparty#p/u/18/6b3MvXFpgwE
223 no I think it will play out as someone who loses the plot when in the limelight ! and im not talking about Susan Boyle !
223. Once again, the image has already been leaked…
http://keeptonyblairforpm.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/gordon_boyle_jonstewartshow_morph.jpg
If Labour wanted some free focus group feedback - I think this is fairly conclusive!
Perhaps they’ll start calling Brown “GoBro”……
234 I’d forgotten about that one - APPLAUSE!
223 - Also, Susan Boyle didn’t spend all her time on BGT smearing her opponents to prevent them from competing against her.
Gordon Brown, the winner of Britain’s Got Debt
Perhaps Gordon needs to get a cat? SuBo has one called Pebbles, perhaps I can interest Dr JG Brown in one called BAM BAM?
232 It’s brilliant!
240: I don’t think Gordons a fan of……cats
No, I won’t go there.
On the Labour poster: Leaving aside the question of whether the poster actually works well in its own terms, the NHS seems a very strange topic to choose.
Usually in negative campaigns you want to try to find a weakness and ruthlessly exploit it, to increase voters’ existing doubts. But Cameron has done a good job on this issue - indeed, IIRC the Conservatives lead in the polls on the question of which party is better placed to run the NHS. Labour are trying to push water uphill attacking him on this particular topic.
223 - Well that would be a better poster than this one. Although it would have worked better within three months of Gordon taking over as PM before it became apparent quite how comprehensively useless he is.
SuBo was starved of oxygen when she was born. What is Gordon’s excuse?
Anyway, they may both look like death warmed up, but SuBo had the ability to surprise us as to how good she was at something. Gordon, on the other hand…
I do hope Labour do it. The graffiti on those posters would be something to behold!
232 / 241 It really is the pits.
I remember seeing it back when and thinking WTF? Who is going to get the Resevoir Dogs allusion and the rest is just so OTT.
and this was the Tory one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bIZLfdEbkc
242.
Political posters are, generally, rubbish. On all sides. The only two good ones I can think of are “Labour isn’t Working” and “Labour’s Tax Bombshell”.
248 “His nose. Her eyes. Gordon’s debt.” That was a powerful poster.
221 Mark Senior
While I share your doubts over the TNS methodology, the LD decline is not just shown in their poll.
This is Ipsos-MORI
Party, Jan-Mar 2005*, Election 2005, Jan-Mar 2006*, Apr-Jun 2006, Aug 2009, Nov 2009
Con, 21%, 16%, 19%, 17%, 18%, 15%
Lab, 43%, 40%, 44%, 36%, 27%, 32%
LD, 18%, 23%, 17%, 17%, 14%, 12%
SNP , 13%, 18%, 16%, 24%, 33%, 34%
Other , 5%, 3%, 4%, 6%, 8%, 6%
* face-to-face surveys
I can understand the Tories focusing on Brown, but I am not sure it is a good idea. They can easily win the next election by not even mentioning Brown - everyone knows who he is and the party he leads - and if they spend too muc time on him, the Tory victory will be seen as Brown’s defeat. And once Brown is gone sometime in the autumn, that helps Labour start again very quickly.
In my view the Tories can and definitely should stick to the positive. They need a mandate because they are going to have to make some very unpopular decisions. Focusing on Brown makes that mandate far harder to claim.
If things were close then I could understand it. But they are not.
Awful Trade numbers, awful retail numbers, awful GDP numbers, awful inflation numbers…
The poisoned chalice awaits Mr. Cameron
248 - yes I agree, even though not new it would still play well.
I thought the one with Hague and Maggie’s hair was a corker
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1355000/images/_1359340_getting_personal_tp_300.jpg
211 - If that is the case, then it is very bad news for the Tories.
249
Meh, it’s been and gone. Maybe should have kept it back until the election.
God that Labour poster is awful - your eye is drawn to the colour side on the left which is the positive side.
Terrible - lucky for Labour they can only afford one poster site in the Hebridies that no one will see.
Same old same old
BBCLauraK Baroness Scotland, the Attorney General, among the peers that have been cleared by the House of Lords authorities over expenses
Labour obviously recognises that Gordon Brown is a negative as they are spending a deal of time and effort trying to rebrand him, while the effort made to denigrate Cameron (the latest poster being an example and on here tim’s increasingly shrill attacks) shows they consider him a positive for the Tories.
For the Conservatives Gordon Brown is an asset IF they can make the election a referendum on Brown. That’s what Labour fears - Gordon himself said he didn’t want the election to be a referendum but about the future. The turn to negativity yesterday was to try to turn the narrative back to Gordon and his suitability for office.
In January Labour kept quiet and kept Gordon away from policy and concentrated on Afghanistan, Northern Ireland. There won’t be a leadership coup cos that was killed off at beginning of month. The Conservative policy launches meant the real story was about them and by end of month the narrative had become a referendum on Conservative solutions rather than Gordon.
That’s not where Cameron & Osborne want to be, they want to be the safe choice for change and Gordon to be the face of the insecure future, the same old face presenting the same old failed policies. Gordon is an asset to them only if they ensure focus on him, on his lies, his false claims, his lack of delivery of those promises he makes offering big hopes and fine words.
They need to learn the Lib Dem trick of claiming positivity, refreshing honesty, fair play while driving home negative attacks on opponents.
256 - not sure I agree David, how many people saw it ? Wasn’t it only used online ?
Mr Crick has come a cropper on his dig at Cameron’s election as leader and AV
TimMontgomerie RT @EricPickles @TimMontgomerie @BBCNewsnight Leadership election at MP stage is conducted under mulitible rounds of voting which is not AV
Interesting it doesn’t even say ‘Labour’ anywhere on it….
258 - yes but Lord Clarke has been referred for further investigation.
charliewhelan
I hope this isn’t insider dealing but one could make a pile of cash on ladbrokes seat odds. They foolishly believe tory spin on key seats
258. (Ian) Blairism isn’t quite dead yet…
264: I wonder if Charlie boy looks at and even posts here?….I wonder who he might be…
Interesting polling news on grammar school popularity…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/7149127/Grammar-schools-should-be-expanded.html?
especially for tim
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thetorydiary/2010/02/3-vote-conservative-because-of-chris-grayling.html
259 - The Tories would be mad to make the election a referendum on Brown. They do not need to do it. They should be campaigning relentlessly for a positive mandate.
Perhaps OGH should invite Charlie Whelan on to do a guest spot with his predictions for the election.
Put his money where his mouth is so to speak..
252 Cicero
and we mustn’t forget pensions.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8505889.stm
I really cannot understand why Brown and Balls haven’t been throroughly nailed on pesnions.
They took £ 6 billion out of schemes, whuich then became underfunded and when the started to collapse they had to set up the Pension Protection Fund with additional taxes to pay for a problem they created.
If thet had left well alone we’d have had none of this nonsense.
269 Agreed - SeanT wants the opposite - I think that’d be a crap idea, Labour are so crap that everyone can see it for themselves, the Tories don’t need to do anything other than rebut any lies as they did after Cloe Smith’s election.
Cameron did an excellent job of calling a smear a smear - I’d like to see more of such straight talking about grubby tactics.
268 - Vote Conservative… because of Chris Grayling
Thats really nasty vicious propaganda.
Cruel and personal.
264 - I think Charlie Whelan joins Gerald Warner and Rod Liddle, in the knowing Jack Sh1t about polling and political betting club
I doubt that Ladbrokes, guided by shadsy (pb pundit of the year), will be too ruffled by Charlie Whelan’s views of their bookmaking.
208 - I hate rubbish like that Crick article. To say Cameron came 2nd in the first round ignores the fact that they knew what the system was. The important thing was getting into the final two. Had it been FPTP, no doubt the campaigning methods would have changed to ensure their man came top.
Articles like that make the assumption that the Tories suddenly decided to change the voting system halfway through.
273. He’s coming after you tim - after dusk no doubt - you’ll be walking home alone and he’ll strike - you’ll feel his fangs at your neck and you’ll be one of us - a blue harpie for eternity mwhahahahaha.. be afraid little tim…
Charlie Whelan has probably seen odds like this:
Chorley
Con 8/11
Lab 1/1
LD 100/1
Target seat 152. If he thinks that’s wrong he can double his money in 3 months putting a wedge down on Labour. So Charlie, are you prepared to put your money where your big mouth is?
Interesting article on Grammar schools Plato thanks.
This bit was suprising..
Some 85 per cent of people aged 18 to 24 – many of whom have just left the education system – backed the idea.
The likes of Mark Thompson really knows how to spend our money!
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article7020540.ece
270,
“Put his money where his mouth is so to speak..”
Hmm.. might be entertaining to watch Charlie Whelan stuffing a large wad of tenners up the part of his anatony he usually talks out of.
271 - The Pension Protection Fund is not funded by taxes, but by a levy on other final salary pension schemes.
If anyone wants a recommendation of a pension story to keep a close eye on, I would draw attention to Reader’s Digest. This may yet be a story with a happy ending, but it appears to be hanging in the balance. If it goes the wrong way, there are going to be a lot of disgruntled older voters, never mind the employees and members and pensioners of the pension scheme themselves.
273 What have you done with tim? Starting at 06:43 today was beyond the call of duty, and your contributions so far are reflecting well on Gabble.
Is this substandard imposter a sign of Labour’s cuts?
261
Yes I noticed that - Chris Huhne on Today was saying the tories use AV as well, which is b0ll0cks. The multiple votes mean you actually end up with someone getting more than 50% of the vote, as opposed to the lame 4th choice “mandate” possible with AV
274 / 275 -
exactly.
276. At least the Conservatives had an election and it was one member one vote - unlike Labour who have neither and unlike the LDs all the votes were counted.
So Crick attacks the fairest system - what a socket.
281. *anatomy*
Fake Dave narrative certainly has legs.
From the link at 209 -
The findings put a question mark over the effectiveness of the Scrutiny Panel which was set up by Mr Cameron to “go beyond” the discredited parliamentary rule book and decide whether claims were acceptable to the public or not
Truly shocked.
And
Well, notice how slippery this is: there’s no actual promise that a petition supported by a million people will be debated, merely that it “could” be discussed in parliament. In other words, this will only happen if the government approves. Thus, as with open primaries (which are, in any case, actually caucuses in which the candidates are pre-approved) Cameron wants to sell you a reform that’s much less sweeping than he would like you to think.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/alexmassie/5762886/open-source-toryism.thtml
282 antifrank
levy = tax by another name IMO
Whats going on now?
Joanne Cash to be back as candidate by 5:00pm??
That was the rumour I just heard, for what it’s worth. It will take some explaining to the electorate how you can have such a swift U-turn.
http://www.toryradio.com/2010/02/09/joanne-cash-to-be-back-as-candidate-by-500pm/
269 SO - they have to do both.
Thatcher offered change, said she would address the decline, address the problems of industrial unrest but also pressed home the Winter of Discontent, the five years wasted under Labour. Major made 1992 in part a referendum on Kinnock’s policies and Smith’s budget. Blair promised change, safe change, keeping the main bulk of Thatcher’s reforms but offering a clean pair of hands, more humanity as against the sleaze and hard faced economic decisions of Major’s Government. His enhanced majority owed itself to the referendum he won on Major’s government.
288 - *yawn*
Your party withdrawn the whip yet, or just a bit of it?
Cricks’s blog is totally incorrect. He says:
“If the Conservatives had used “first past the post” in 2005, then David Davis would have won.”
Does he actually know that the Conservative leader is elected by the MEMBERS, not MPs?
Under FPTP, Davis and Cameron would have gone striaght into the final ballot of members. Which is exactly what subsequently happened.
The error in his article is so basic I wouldn’t expect it to be made by a Politics GCSE student.
How on earth can he retain his position if he doesn’t know such simple basic information?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/michaelcrick/
OT Oh dear - Dick Bacon is interviewing David Dimbleby tomorrow. Well that’ll make Mr Bacon look like Walter Cronkite…
288 ‘Truly Shocked’
tim, you can leave out the faux indignation - I doubt anyone here believes it.
You’ll be borrowing Alistair Campbell’s peeled onion next and going all weepy on us, though one expects that your acting skills will be more convincing than his.
Stick to the cut and paste and see if you can outbore Coldstone.
10 Peers cleared 10 still under investigation according to R5
288
A quite spectacular spin on the article there, Tim. Well done.
292 I do hope you’ve posted on his blog! I thought it was MPs and still criticised him for being biased…
296 - Try this story from “Tory Radio”
Joanne Cash to be back as candidate by 5:00pm??
That was the rumour I just heard, for what it’s worth. It will take some explaining to the electorate how you can have such a swift U-turn.
re 131. Tim - you are fiddling figures to try to prove a case.
These are the MORI numbers for 2006
http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/poll.aspx?oItemID=88&view=wide#2006
In the last poll Cameron was on 43% - the highest figure he got to in 2006 was 32%
For the YouGov numbers check out this.
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/leaders/cameron
Telling lies about numbers is something that gets right under my skin
Please desist - that is just black propaganda.
288. Dear God. Just another cut n paste. What’s the f*cking point, man? Your posts used to be at least readable, and occasionally showed signs of personal thought.
The Strange Decline in Tim’s IQ. Discuss.
A rather bizarre attack on the Tories by Vince Cable, blaming them for the resignation of the chief executive of the FSA.
“We don’t know if this decision is a direct result of the Tories’
stance on the FSA’s future but what we can say is that their proposals are creating uncertainty for an organisation that has a vital role to play”.
Two thoughts arise from this. First, interesting that Vince doesn’t make any criticism of the Government desite the fact that the head of the body Gordon brown created oversee financial regulation has resigned and instead blames the Conservatives.
Second, the logic of Vince’s argument is that one shouldn’t offer any reform ever because it only causes uncertainty.
131/299 Golly - ‘tim’ in misleading use of statistics shock [again].
Who’d have thunk it?
Clearly Labour can’t get the staff these days…
Alastair Campbell on ‘Loose Women’ today (admittedly a friendly forum for him) did hint that Cameron may come under full scrutiny of the public gaze shorlty. It’s going to get nasty!
And, Rachel Sylvester’s Times column very good with the theme ‘they just don’t get life outside the Westminster village’.
I think this election may have one or two surprises up its sleave.
I hope the Lib Dems push the line: ‘You’ve had the Tories, and you’ve had Tory-lite- time for something different’!
“We don’t know if this decision is a direct result of the Tories’
stance on the FSA’s future ”
True. We don’t know whether it’s because I’m having noodles for dinner tonight either.
301 - LibDem strategy is all wrong.
“Alastair Campbell on ‘Loose Women’ today (admittedly a friendly forum for him) did hint that Cameron may come under full scrutiny of the public gaze shorlty. ”
Like he hasn’t already. Campbell, like Tim, is trying to push a line that isn’t reall catching. In Campbell’s case, it’s that the “Tory media” are giving him a free pass.
292. Like most of the Newsnight team his continued presence is the result of a combination of BBC inertia and his political leanings. He’s an embarrassing figure.
301 - Quite; a shocking absence of coherent thinking. Cable’s 15 minutes are drawing to a close - he believed his own hype for a while.
299. More evidence of the Tim Malfunction. He used to be quite sharp on numbers, too.
As Plato says upthread, the nasty-but-effectively-acerbic tim has been replaced by some kind of witless drone, who just repastes articles from 6.20am onwards, claims Nick Clegg is going to “tear Cameron a new one”, and then makes fatuously erroneous statements about the polls.
Weird.
*** BETTING POST ESPECIALLY FOR CHARLIE WHELAN ***
In the light of Charlie Whelan’s confidence, all good socialists will be looking for good ways to fill their boots on the certainty that the Tories will fail to get an absolute majority. Bet365 offer 11/5 that the Tories will fail to get 325 seats, conveniently covering not just hung Parliaments but also those cases where Labour get an absolute majority. (This is, incidentally, the same price that they quote for no majority, but obviously better value.)
You can still get 5/2 with Ladbrokes on a hung Parliament if you’re prepared to forego the chances of a Labour absolute majority. But no doubt Mr Whelan is reluctant to exclude that possibility just yet.
Is Gordo going to give more of our money to Greece?
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100025539/if-the-eu-bailed-out-greece-would-britain-have-to-pay-its-share/
If one wants to judge the effectiveness of a party’s message/campaigning, R5L have generally led with every Tory launch on Drive. I certainly haven’t heard that happen with Labour’s NHS event today…
310
Tim does a Grayling
308. Yes, to think we once regarded Vince Cable as some kind of brilliant sage, just because of one mildly funny joke about Mister Bean.
A clear case of media over-promotion.
312 I suspect Mr Balls personal attack on Peter Allen didn’t help their cause. The fact that they included the whole car-crash in their Review of the Year said it all
If I hadn’t followed Mr Sparrow’s live feed on Burnhams’s press conference, I’d have no idea it even happened.
Ball’s has peed off one of the most listened to shows on a national broadcaster that only talks about politics and sport. Own goal hat-trick…
308. It is neither one thing nor the other. cable could have properly attacked the Tories for planning to break up the FSA or he could have genuinely commented on the reasons for the chief executive leaving. He tries to hang the former on the instance of the latter but fails totally and ends up looking silly.
Is Tim just the 1 person or just the pseudo name that all the trolls at Labour HQ use. He could in fact be 50 people just sending out spam at once.
He does seem to be here 24 hrs a day, somehow.
Afternoon all,
I think that all these views are wrong and that it is highly dangerous to pin your party hopes on other parts of the electorate sharing the same view of leaders as you do.
Whilst I agree with this idea generally, I disagree with it in this circumstance. Gordon Brown is a gift that will keep on giving because of the level to which he is flawed as an individual.
Brown has got to do something he is not good at - facing the electorate and likely a pretty hostile electorate. At some point there will be a highly embarrassing episode with Brown and the public and its then that the negative campaigning needs to be timed for.
Of course Labour can wrap Brown up in cotton wool for the whole of the campaign which in itself is another gift from which numerous narrative can be developed.
The beauty is once the initial mistake is made you know that Brown will rise to the bait. When in a hole Brown keeps digging and is unable to laugh it off. It will only take one incident and that will be it…….
And do I think it is fair play to highlight a Prime Minister’s unreliable temperament. Yes I do because that man has his finger on the nuclear button.
311. No, he’s not.
It would be politically catastrophic, for a start, just before an election. Nor is it justifiable legally, we aren’t in the euro. And if we did do this it would set a quite incredible precedent: Britain has to pay to bail out profligate members of a club to which we do not belong?
Yeah, right.
The governments already IN the eurozone will have grave trouble selling a Greek bail-out to their voters. I’m not sure it will happen: the IMF might be politically easier all round.
315. Cable has thrived on a) the gross ignorance in matters economic of most of the press and b) his credentials as a non-Tory opposition voice. A perfect combination for the BBC and other left-liberal parts of the media.
If you actually follow the thread of his arguments over time you can find an abundance of misjudgements and inconsistencies.
On Tupac
Telling lies about numbers is something that gets right under my skin
It’s the number of lies that gets under mine.
298 tim - It just shows how much more decisive we Tories are than Labour. We manage our re-fenestrations within hours, whereas it took your lot years to bring back Alastair Campbell and Peter Mandelson.
322. So, that’s a yes then…
“At some point there will be a highly embarrassing episode with Brown and the public and its then that the negative campaigning needs to be timed for.”
He’s going to punch a hospital patient. Trust me.
If any more evidence were needed that Labour are determined to mount an utterly negative election campaign drive by fear, in which truth is sacrificed at the alter of perceived political expediency then one need look no further than their new poster campaign:
http://www.shanegreer.com/2010/02/09/a-sign-of-desperation-2/
313 - It could make a good double-edged question for PMQs tomorrow:
“What financial help and what practical advice will he and his government offer Greece in coping with their unprecedented deficit?”
259- The Lib Dems are much like the Democrats of a year ago; personified only by their rhetoric and not soiled by the difficult business of governing. I wonder if the Lib Dems would be seen in a much less flattering light, as is currently happening to the Dems, if all their lovely rhetoric based on untested theories were ever put to the test of reality. The Lib Dems should really hope there is no hung Parliament that could force them to get their hands dirty at such an inauspicious time.
326 Scott P
put Brown in front of other leaders and he’ll be volunteering more money we haven’t got. You just know it.
329 SWEET
322. ‘Nor is it justifiable legally, we aren’t in the euro’
I’m afraid that is not necessarily true. Although outside the euro, the UK could indeed be obliged to pay for part of a Greek rescue, depending on exactly what part of the Treaties was used to frame that rescue.
I agree it would be politically explosive, though. A very awkward dilemma for Labour, should the problem arise.
301
I think St Vince is freelancing Lib/Dem economic policy - or subletting it from the ‘Iron Chancellor’.
My reservation on anything to to with reform of the regulatory bodies is that it may be impossible to put the genie back into the bottle.
Cable sucked in to the “Conservatives already the government” thinking - a schoolboy error from the non-thinking mans George Soros.
Coffehouse are also on the case
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5762973/how-should-the-tories-respond-to-those-labour-guarantees.thtml
300 tim
Joanne Cash
No U-turn, merely a pregnant pause.
http://yfrog.com/0lboombustp
Two-faced Gordo. Both in colour, as each has an equally important message
322-But Sean if the rest of the Eurozone allow Greece to go down the IMF route i think the markets will just keep pressing the next country in line.Portugal,then Italy then Spain.
It would be a slow painful outcome.
If the ECB acted decisevley then it may shock the speculators and make them realise that the Eurozone are serious and in this for the long run.The conditions must be ripe for a short squeeze.
329. 332. Gordon would just reply that his chief advice would be to ignore anything suggested by the Conservatives who were wrong on this, that and the other.
322 - SeanT Flanders thinks Sarkozy is wobbly on the IMF helping out, I wonder why ?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/stephanieflanders/2010/02/the_new_eurobillions_lottery.html
ps looks like she reads guido if you read the update at the end.
325
I like that idea - put ‘em on bungees
Ah, R5 reporting that more babies are born on Christmas Eve than any other - apparently it’s down to Valentine’s Day
Is that causation, correlation or coincidence?
303 Thirdly, it implies that the Conservatives are on the point of forming a government.
So campbell goes on loose women, I thought he was upset and blubbed on marr because he had enough of being asked questions but now seams happy to attack cameron F******* hypocrite
The Labour poster can also be read as a Tory poster saying “We are committed to the NHS, but won’t be giving this particular treatment”.
It’s just rubbish.
343 Plato
I think it is called copulation.
341. Apart from the intense humiliation of having to accept an IMF role, there is a further problem - that the IMF might grant assistance with what the EU calls ‘monetary conditions’.
We already have a situation in the Baltic States where the IMF wanted devaluation as part of the rescue packages but the EU vetoed it on political grounds (with appalling deflationary consequences). In those very small economies the IMF gave way - they might not in the case of Greece.
333. As even Hannan admits in his blog, forcing Britain to cough up for overpaid Greek civil servants would be pretty hard to do whatever clause they use.
Yes there are loosely worded phrases about EU countries being “obliged to help each other”, but these seem to be aimed at things like earthquakes or military invasion.
Any attempt to FORCE the UK to pay cash for someone else’s deficit problems, under these clauses, would go straight to the supreme court and the ensuing court case could possibly break up the EU. It won’t happen.
The only way it could happen is if Brown is so utterly pathetic and feeble he simply agrees, to appear nice and European (like Blair and our rebate), with an election looming he won’t hand such amazing ammunition to Cameron.
However, the confusion underlines the necessity of reforming and restructuring our entire relationship with Brussels. I say that as a reluctant and contemptuous europhile.
We need a NEW EU Constitution. A proper one. One that works. This shambles now is pitiful.
345. A comment on Cranmer re Cameron
Why doesn’t he go on the Marr show and blubber? He hasn’t done this yet, he isn’t dithering is he?
Vince’s great advantage is that he can say what he wants at present because he isn’t ging to ever be in charge.
Most of what he proposed last year in cutting spending, his warnings on needing to cut £100bn aren’t going to be in the Lib Dem policy statements or manifesto. He proclaimed himself the only true Prophet of the Recession and the media took that hook. line and sinker. Things like his attack on Gordon for seemingly interfering with BoE independence, being followed three weeks later with calling for Gordon to intervene if necessary to cut interest rates, BoE independence be damned if the economy needed it, are ignored. Its a great place to be, no power, no responsibility.
343 - There’s a correlation to me proposing on valentines day.
349. “if Brown is so utterly pathetic and feeble he simply agrees, to appear nice and European (like Blair and our rebate), with an election looming he won’t hand such amazing ammunition to Cameron.”
So, that’s a yes then…
343 Plato - and how many of the boys born at Christmas end up being called Noel?
Isn’t Brown planning on skipping PMQ’s again? Weren’t there rumours of an emergency meeting over Greece?
How he conducts himself from now till May is crucial. Cameron’s arrogance is turning voters off in droves. It’s possible for Brown to take advantage of this but in all honesty he’s not known for taking his opportunities. I know what he should do but I’m not convinced he will.
On topic - Labour’s problem with Brown is not that he is awkward and has no social skills. It’s that he lies and, unlike his predecessor, consistently gets caught lying. This leads to diminishing trust towards him and his party. It’s why they really should have dumped him two years ago.
People expect politicians to lie. They just don’t expect them to be quite so brazen when they get caught.
Brown is finished and will take New labour with him. End of.
343 Plato
It’s just men trying to get out of buying a Xmas present for their wife. “But I arranged this wonderful gift 9 months ago”.
“Cameron’s arrogance is turning voters off in droves.”
The figures posted by Mike don’t seem to support this…..
352, aw you big softie TSE, says she who got married that day
Tom Harris isn’t into Love Bombing the LibDems.. quite funny this.
The Libdems amendment :-
For the uninitiated, the STV system means preferential voting for MPs in multi-member constituencies. So, rather than leave the drawing of the new boundaries to a politically-neutral body such as the Boundary Commission, the LibDems have helpfully done it themselves. So my own seat (electorate: 68,000) gets subsumed into a seven-member Glasgow seat (electorate 428,500). We can assume that, in an STV election, the minor parties (Conservative, Liberal, SNP, etc) would be represented among the seven MPs elected.
However, the seat of Argyll and Bute (electorate: 68,000) would, under the Liberals’ proposals, be transformed into… er, well, a single-member constituency called “Argyll and Bute” (electorate: 68,000). Likewise Orkney and Shetland (electorate: 33,400) would become a single-member constituency called “Orkney and Shetland” (electorate: 33,400).
Can anyone guess which party the MPs for these two seats are members of? Anyone? Correct! The LibDems!
http://www.tomharris.org.uk/2010/02/09/libdems-unveil-their-utterly-impartial-totally-principled-electoral-map-of-britain/
356 - Cameron’s arrogance is turning voters off in droves.
Polling evidence please?
329 - If any of David Cameron’s minions are reading this (and I’m sure they are), I expect they will have jotted that one down as a contender.
test
360 TSE
oh just sit back and let Roger rabbit. It’s comedy.
356 - Cameron’s arrogance is turning voters off in droves.
made up?
352, aw you big softie TSE, says she who got married that day
Tom Harris isn’t into Love Bombing the LibDems.. quite funny this.
http://www.tomharris.org.uk/2010/02/09/libdems-unveil-their-utterly-impartial-totally-principled-electoral-map-of-britain/
358 - Men should come to me for advice on buying presents.
In reference to the Greece struggle, just been reading the European treaties (as one does!) and come across some cracking paragraphs on Government debt.
Article 126.
1. Member States shall avoid excessive Government deficits.
2. The Commission shall monitor the development of the budgetary situation and of the stock of government debt in the Member States with a view to identifying gross errors. In particular it shall examine compliance with budgetary discipline on the basis of the following two criteria:
a) whether the ratio of the planned or acutal government deficit to GDP exceeds a reference value (3% of GDP), unless:
- either the ration has declined substantially and continuously and reached a level that comes close to the reference value,
- or, alternatively, the excess over the reference value is only exceptional and temporary and the ratio remains close to the reference value (3% of GDP)
b) whether the ratio of government debt to GDP exceeds a reference value (60% of GDP), unless the ratio is sufficiently diminishing and approaching the reference vlaue at a satisfactory rate.
One wonders how long it will be before the European Commission “prepares a report” on our debt. We have been over 3% of GDP as a deficit since 2008/9 and are now way over it and will remain so until past 2014-15 when we are still estimated to have 4.4% deficit.
Our debt to GDP goes over 60% this year and will remain so until long after 2015-16.
What a naughty boy Gordon has been, especially after all those years lecturing European finance ministers about how wonderful he was.
363 - I like Roger, and want to make sure he’s properly prepared of the electoral pounding (if only there was an analogy for that pounding) Labour will face in March, April, May or June.
Mike I have a couple of posts stuck in spam trap please delete..
http://TomHarrisOnLibDemAmenMentToAV
DOH they have appeared now.. sorry folks
359 – Re: “Cameron’s arrogance” For God’s sake - it was posted by Roger.
The man is an idiot.
And now for something completelt different
Who is the odd man out and more importantly, why?
1. Lord Stevenson: former chairman, HBOS
2. Sir Fred Goodwin: former chief executive, RBS
3. Andy Hornby: former chief executive, HBOS
4. Sir Tom McKillop: former chairman, RBS
5. John McFall MP: chairman of Treasury Select Committee
6. Alastair Darling: Chancellor of the Exchequer
7. Gordon Brown: Prime Minister and former Chancellor
8. David Cameron: Leader of the Conservative Party
9. George Osbourne: Conservative Party Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer
10. Sir Terry Wogan: former presenter of Radio 2’s Breakfast Show
You’re probably thinking Terry Wogan…… and you are right . However the reason might surprise you.
Terry Wogan is the only one out of this motley crew who actually holds any formal banking qualifications!
Just applying a few brain cells - Feb 14th > Dec 24th is more than 10 months!!!
Are all children called Noel elephantine???
365. But you’re not getting any, TSE!
(”and neither are you Sunil”, I hear you all cry!
)
Valentine’s Day is often said to be the most depressing day to be in a restaurant. Lots of tables for two and a deathly hush across the entire room.
Roger
Glad to see you are on.
Can we have your unbiased and expert analysis in why the new Labour poster will be so effective?
I was concerned that it didn’t use turquoise, the colour of 2010.
372 I was about to point that out too LOL!
372 Plato
Maybe it’s the equivalent of a “Sorry I forgot Valentine’s Day” card?
373 - But i’ve given some sensational presents, that have made women cry.
371 And a hat-tip is due to…
http://www.surreptitiousevil.com/2009/03/myth-of-banking-qualifications.html
378. That’s morning sickness for you.
367 TSE
re analogy : perhaps “pute du quai ” are the mots justes
378 - TSE - how to make a woman scream in bed?
A - wipe your equipment on the curtains afterwards
343 - simple reason for that - the hospitals squeeze them out on Christmas Eve so they’re not being born on Christmas Day when they’ve fewer staff to look after them. I expect if you look at non-induced births Christmas Eve would be unremarkable, but there are a lot of inductions on Christmas Eve.
378 A Dyson?
372 - Perhaps you can work this one out for me.
Parents wedding anniversary: 26th of December
My Date of Birth: 27th of September.
I also know two brothers, who were born about 9 months and a few days apart.
382 Most unseemly
341. I see Stephanie has a few commenters unhappy with the insulting acronym PIGS (for Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain - the indebted nations of peripheral Europe). She suggests STUPID is just as bad - Spain, Turkey, UK, Portugal, Ireland and Dubai.
I’ve heard some others since which are even spicer, e.g. the WOGS - Wales, Orange County California, Galicia and Scotland - heavily indebted “regions” of an already deficit-laden country.
Then there’s the DAGOES. Denmark, Austria, Germany, Oman, Ecuador, and Slovenia, countries which seem to have relatively few problems with exports.
And of course let’s not forget the BLEEDING PAKIS: Britain, Latvia, Estonia, Eritrea, Dahomey, India, Greenland, Paraguay, Australia, Kazakhstan, Italy and Serbia - countries with no history of spaghetti overproduction leading to default.
384 - No, a bottle of toilet duck.
Well I had promised her something no other woman had ever received on Valentines day.
343. “Is that causation, correlation or coincidence?”
No, it’s just ignorance of the human gestation period.
Babies born on 24 December will have been conceived on or around 24 March.
385 - I wouldn’t expect such a speedy ahem recovery if I was you TSE.
372. A wet Easter weekend stuck in a caravan in Skeggie might be a better explanation then!
385 Married on Boxing Day ?
But they’d have missed loads of James Bond movies!!!
385 - when I was at school, I had a friend who’s mother’s birthday was 3rd November. He had a little brother born on July 5th. Make of that what you will.
385 - That tells us everything about their father’s needs.
My mother’s birthday: 21 February
My birthday: 16 November
When I first did the maths as a teenager, I had that nauseous feeling that any healthy child has when contemplating his parents’ sex life.
372 – Plato, too much of a gentleman to point out the 10 month gestation period at the time
One reason for the increase is due to induced pregnancies prior to the Christmas hols – reduced staff levels and the benefit of mothers being back home with the family play a part I believe.
382 - I’ll refrain from asking which curtains
385. “I was concerned that it didn’t use turquoise, the colour of 2010.”
It probably got the thumbs-down from the focus group if two-year-olds. We all know how obsessed they are with differences of colour.
387
385 TSE
No one here is going to judge you because you were 3 months old when your parents married.
394 - Yeah, I did the maths too. I too felt nauseous.
It’s not a pleasant feeling.
392 - Yeah, they got married in Pakistan, worked out cheaper.
399 Mr Eagles would be 7 months old if Lilly Allen was his mum
400 TSE
That’s not what your parents said.
HoC debate on at present
iaindale
Watching the AV debate on the Parl. Channel.LibDems all over the place. Want to spend £80m on a referendum on a system they don’t agree with
UK first post Quantative Easing Gilt Issue Oversubscribed.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2010/02/09/145011/post-qe-gilt-auction/
So, what’s the panic rightwingers?
400 - If you want really disturbing, my younger sister’s birthday is 18 August. Quite what I did on my second birthday that put my parents in the mood I really do not want to begin to think about.
Plato if that’s so then they’re seriously overdue. Human gestation is 40 weeks not 45.
I can understand men wanting to do it in the delivery room.
Nearly 5months and counting.
Ah, R5 reporting that more babies are born on Christmas Eve than any other - apparently it’s down to Valentine’s Day
Is that causation, correlation or coincidence?
by Plato February 9th, 2010 at 4:32 pm
Shouldn’t they be born in late November then or is a Valentine baby a very lazy one ?
389 history boy
“Is that causation, correlation or coincidence?”
No, it’s just ignorance of the human gestation period.
Or ignorance of the calendar of Saints Days.
Historians should not leap to conclusions.
379 I feel that I ought to share Surreptitious Evil’s observation concerning Jim Sheridan, MP for Paisley… “He is so appalling, I am wondering why he isn’t a List MSP.”
389 had just checked and realised the same - though I remember reading that fertilisation can in some cases be up to two weeks after the act, the lazy boys hang round in comfortable surroundings not doing much, but that would just be early March. Pehaps it’s that Valentine’s starts off new ‘romances’ and we all know how much more romancing there is with new partners….
BBCLauraK
Watch for a couple of dozen Labour MP s abstaining on scrapping first past the post-predictions rife in commons
- and the latest boondoggle to come out of the ‘climate change’ imbroglio….
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/7196241/Council-plans-to-spend-30000-on-iPads.html
406 - I surprised that you’re not still receiving therapy
405. The markets have factored in a Tory majority. The panic will happen if they don’t get one.
404. Anything to help Labour out.
408, a friend of mine saud her mother cited that in her divorce case.
405. And the yields?
So that’s:
UK 4.05% (+4bp)
G7 avg. 3.30% (-4bp)
G7 excl. UK 3.17% (-5bp)
…and we’re very close to Italy.
Don’t Panic!
393 - My mothers birthday is 5th November, and I was born on 30th June :O
405 BenM
UK first post Quantative Easing Gilt Issue Oversubscribed.
So, what’s the panic rightwingers?
They have been bought by means of a Greek bond swap?
405. Ben forgets to read the article all the way to the end - coldstone style.
“And they are also lower this morning, no doubt unsettled by the latest Populus opinion poll, which showed support for the Labour party up 2 percentage points to 30 per cent and increases the possibility of a hung parliament.”
0/5 for this one Ben - your a poor mans tim at this rate.
409.Seth. Is the calendar of saints days a method of Catholic contraception?
Otherwise I’ve missed your point.
417 - I think my wife will cite many things in the divorce case
408. Just wait til the old incest taboo kicks in. That’s when you suddenly feel like you are tupping yer mum.
Tricky.
then there are the African basket case economies of Cameroon, Uganda, Niger. and Togo.
416. Lib Dems vote with Brown for an AV referendum; Tories voted with Blair for a war. About the same significance I guess.
411 Ted - kitties are usually a couple of days either side of 63, I’ve had babies born a week or later and ahead on development terms by 10 days.
It’s a huge game changer - 99% of kitties are blind/deaf for 14 days, a late litter can be roaming within 48 hrs.
387. Poor you SeanT. You must have time on your hands to make up all those anagrams.
Writers block perhaps?
Meanwhile Mike: get that airbrushed Gordo photo/poster out of my sight.
417 - aptly illustrated on the chart on this article..
David Cameron’s opinion poll lead over Labour again fell below 10 points on Sunday, heightening fears in the government bond market that the coming election could produce a hung parliament.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c004f2a0-1417-11df-8847-00144feab49a.html?catid=18&SID=google
OT, some light relief
http://blogs.wsj.com/iainmartin/2010/02/09/2012-sarah-palin-reminds-me-of-david-st-hubbins/?mod=rss_WSJBlog
404 - wonder if Ed Davey will have another of his weird yells, followed by Lib Dems running out of the HoC like hens chasing corn.
423 TSE
close your eyes and think of Harriet Harman, it’s better than a cold shower.
@413: I saw that on the Cambridge paper this evening. If my esteemed Liberal Democrat colleagues believe that iPads can help save the planet (by “saving paper”…sheesh…but…) then I’m more than happy to withhold £500 from my council tax this year and buy one for myself; I use at least as much paper as they do.
Or…wait…is it just a massive swizzle from a bunch of LD geeks on the council? Surely not?
425
I’ve two sisters and a brother - one sister born on my Dad’s birthday, the other was three days early coincidentally 3 days before his birthday, my brother was 4 days late, coincidentally 4 days after my Mum’s birthday. Quite some planning!
I was born 9 months after their honeymoon so no target date for my arrival.
my last post was to History Boy at 5:03 pm
grr numbers
428. No, being as I am in sunny Thailand and seven hours and 26 degrees celsius ahead of you, I am halfway through a bottle of acceptable Aussie Pinot Noir, having finished my work for the day, and therefore I’m pleasantly bored rather than horribly blocked.
Indeed I am probably suffering the OPPOSITE of writer’s block (hypergraphia?): I have written 66,500 words of my new thriller, in a flat five weeks.
That’s basically a shortish regular novel in just over a month. I occasionally worry about the quality.
432 - Ewww. I do have some standards you know. Granted, they are lower than everyone elses.
405 - So just £2bn 15 year bonds at 4% above base rate of 0.5% is a success? We are paying 9 times the official interest rate to get away the bond. Hmmm….
394. Antifrank we share the same birthday: 16th Nove.
437 Mr SeanT - what was it about that novel that broke through?
422 history boy
What is stopping the ignorant celebrating St Valentine’s Day on 24 March?
437. Do you want a new agent?
Division. Now we’ll see if any Lab MP’s have any cullions and if the LD’s have been sucked … in
441. Not sure I understand the question! “Broke through”?
Some good arguements put forward - namely £80mill for a non question
439. And how many days does £2bn feed Gordo’s insatiable spending habit for?
tim
labour’s day today: 500 000 cold calls declared illegal
most useless poster in history
balls follows up SMS death threat bullying initiative with a keep kiddies safe on the internet site which redirects to gay porn - whwn it comes to bungling grayling will always look a part time amateur compared to this man.
you must be proud
259
God that Labour poster is awful - your eye is drawn to the colour side on the left which is the positive side.
Terrible - lucky for Labour they can only afford one poster site in the Hebridies that no one will see.
by The Ghost of Harry Flashman February 9th, 2010 at 3:31 pm
Don’t worry both SKY and the BBC will put it on TV for those that miss it.
The SKY web site as it on their site now.
Oh dear, I thought that we were told that the David Cameron poster was a mistake for the Conservatives? If so, why have Labour used Cameron in their posters as they try and undermine his commitment to the NHS?
445 That caught the public’s imagination…
447 Scott P
I calculate we’re good till Saturday evening.
Ben M overlooked quite a bit of that article.
“In fact, since the MPC decision to pause QE last week, UK gilts have risen only slightly. However, this disguises a sharp underperformance relative to many of its G7 peers, according to Ostwald.
Which tells us that amid the recent flight to safety, gilts have missed out.
And they are also lower this morning, no doubt unsettled by the latest Populus opinion poll, which showed support for the Labour party up 2 percentage points to 30 per cent and increases the possibility of a hung parliament.”
The chart showed that we are having to pay more interest on our gilts than any other G7 Country bar Italy.
Do we know what PC & SNP intend to do with regards to the AV vote?
452. “I calculate we’re good till Saturday evening.”
And there was much rejoicing!!
451. I once submitted a short fantasy adventure to Puffin Books when I was only 11 (this was way back in 1988). It was “considered” for publication but ultimately rejected
More info here:
http://fightingfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/User:Sunil060902/Mini-Gamebooks
436. Kristin. I’ve commente several times on here that the only think propping up the government is the expectation of their imminent departure.
Sadly, this has profound implications for democracy. If the electorate believe they can vote for 5 more year of Brown they are mistaken. There would be economic armageddon and the government would collapse within weeks.
So as the lady said, There Is No Alternative.
457. oops. commente=commented and think=thing
405. With Gordon Brown going and a severe deflation expected, plus banks and PIGS wobbling here and there, parking your money in British Gilts might enable a tidy return of 4%, plus no involvement with the Euro.
House only about 1/4 full and there doesn’t seem to be many Lab MP’s
The way AV is being reported is very bad for Brown.
There is little focus on the pros and cons of FPTP and AV. The only message coming across is “Brown trying to change voting system 2 months before a GE”.
To the average member of the public who is only going to hear (at most) a passing soundbite it sounds awful and will reinforce views on Brown.
They’ll win the vote if they only get a few Labour MP’s abstaining.. cowards.
Grrr Ays 357 Noes 180
Extraordinary. Some Labourites want to keep the economy centre stage.
http://www.labourlist.org/keep-the-focus-on-the-economy
463. Not close then -lol - looks like Clegg has joined the Lib/Lab pact already.
457 by History Boy February 9th, 2010 at 5:24 pm
There’s always an alternative but that doesn’t mean it will be pretty or painless.
There is a free vote on the Keep Election night .. yeehah..
463. That was the money motion. The Lib Dems voted to support spending £80M on a referendum the details of which they have yet to debate.
faisalislam
Rumours in Germany that they are close to a rescue deal for Greece… this would be extraordinary, and a tough sell to the German people
Jack Straw seems to be offering government support to Eleanor Laing’s proposed amendment which will require Returning Officers to start GE counts within 4 hours of the polls closing. Government offer is for a free vote with reserved right to amend wording.
Re: FSA resignation:
“Ok no great shakes in Osborne meeting Sants yesterday. sants also met Chancellor, Libdems and Mervyn. Story over.”
http://twitter.com/faisalislam
TimMontgomerie
Mr @Isaby will be delighted > RT@iaindale Straw just announced a free vote on compulsory election night counts
On the “other” referendum being considered today, the Welsh Assembly have just voted to hold a referendum on additional powers. For 53, none against or abstained.
453. Sean
Labour just can’t get (afford) the staff anymore. Whats the world coming to?
457 History Boy - It’s actually worse than that. A Hung Parliament could be more dangerous than an outright Labour victory; at least with a majority Labour government it would be clear who is responsible, and they could pretty much guarantee to implement some plan. There would also be a good likelihood of Brown being chucked out by his colleagues and replaced by someone vaguely sane.
With a hung parliament, there would be great uncertainty, which is one thing markets absolutely hate. Why should anyone holding Sterling or contemplating lending to Britain take the risk of the government being held to ransom by minority parties, when there are other credit-worthy and politically stable countries, without such massive deficits and massive private debt, to lend to?
Do we know if Gordon is going to grace us with his attendance at PMQ’s tomorrow?
457. Tories don’t do themselves any favours at times by exaggerating the scale of the problem. Yes a credit downgrade in the bond markets does create a significant problem in terms of the public finances and higher interest rates (and I accept labour people on the whole don’t appreciate that) but it is not the end of the world.
Their are as many risks in terms of a depression if the deficit issue is allowed to be treated as being the only issue in town and if Osborne goes to work on that too quickly and too hard (fortunately Cameron seems to be more sensible on this and to appreciate public spending can’t be cut TOO fast) as their are from a crisis in the bond markets. Their is a difficult balance to be struck here, but tales of financial armaggedon and exaggeration as at 457 are as likely to lose the tories votes as gain them.
It seems that Cameron’s speech has induced another partial U-turn:
Harriet Harman gives MPs vote on more backbench powers
“Harriet Harman has moved to allay fears that the government is trying to block plans to enhance backbenchers’ powers.
The Commons leader is setting aside a day, provisionally 4 March, for debates and votes on the controversial changes.
They include secret ballots of all MPs for chairmen of select committees - currently chosen by party bosses.
But the Tories said the government had still not given MPs enough time and key parts of the proposals had been “kicked into touch” by Ms Harman.
Ms Harman said a backbench committee to schedule non-government debates - which would hand more power to ordinary MPs - needed further consideration to clarify its scope and procedures and the government motion would back it “in principle”. ”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8506529.stm
For something that was considered a panic attack by some, the only panic has been in the government…
This AV move is potential electoral poison for Labour AND the Lib Dems. If the voters get a hold of the notion that the government is desperately trying to gerrymander the election weeks before their presumed defeat… whoooh. Dangerous.
They Will Be Punished. I guess Labour just don’t care any more, they think they are going to lose so they have nothing to lose. But their are degrees of defeat. And this could make it so much worse, if it blows up.
Cameron needs to hammer this home: This disgusting government is so crooked it has suddenly decided to try and change the voting system several weeks before it is about to be defeated by the voters.
Hammer that home. Hammer it. This will NOT be popular.
I can just see the ads on this one
Labour and the Lidems voted to spend 80 million on a referendum to save their necks but wouldnt spend it to give you a vote on Lisbon.
It writes it self really.
463. So the Libdems proved they were Labour jailbait once again, What a surprise…..
469 Scott P
That would explain Greek Equity markets recovering 4-6% of their losses today and a small rise in the Euro and Sterling against the dollar. Sterling has rised over a cent this afternoon.
But this only delays rather than solves the underlying problem…
I was born 9 (and a bit) months after this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_general_election_%28UK%29
Hang on, does an election night vote mean local authorities would have to do what Parliament says?
Apparently the LibDems have drawn constituency maps for their STV proposal and their seats in Scotland are getting a somewhat favourable position:
http://www.tomharris.org.uk/2010/02/09/libdems-unveil-their-utterly-impartial-totally-principled-electoral-map-of-britain/
As the distant taste of power finally removes any principles the LDs might have had as they troop through the lobbies to vote for something they don’t like, can I strongly recommend Tom Harris’ latest blog, which reveals just what the LDs think the electoral system is there for.
484 - they would have to start counting within 4 hours of the polls closing.
479. “Cameron needs to hammer this home: This disgusting government is so crooked it has suddenly decided to try and change the voting system several weeks before it is about to be defeated by the voters.”
There’s a pretty obvious antidote to any such jibe - the change isn’t being proposed for this general election, ie. it can only take effect if Labour win a mandate for it in the GE, and even then it would be subject to a referendum.
AV may be a rubbish, non-proportional system, but that particular Tory gripe is an indisputable red herring.
What happens if the counters refuse to turn out? Isn’t it outside their normal duties.
Thrasher has done an analysis of the LibDem’s position. He reckons they might be worried:
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Politics/Michael-Thrasher-Lib-Dems-Need-To-Reverse-The-Trend-To-Be-Successul-In-Next-Election/Article/201001215519169?
487 - But it probably will work as a soundbite, doesn’t matter that its fundamentally wrong.
Cameron took the flak over Lisbon although the Conservatives voted against it, it’s a gift associating Labour and the LiBDems voting for a gerrynmandering referendum when they both broke their promises on Lisbon. They’ll live to regret it at the ballot box I’m sure. Easy to bring up o the doorstep.
477: Michael S @ 17:38
In terms of reducing public spending, what is too fast? What in your opinion is too hard?
As was noted above we are now having to pay 4% to borrow long term (incidentaly that £2bn, enough to keep government spending going for less than a week, will cost us £1.2bn in interest payments over the term of the loan). How high a premium do you think we can afford to pay?
Well, quite…
http://www.redragonline.com/2010/02/why-are-lib-dems-propping-up-gordon.html
490 Rob D - Quite. They’ve had 12 years to propose this or any other change. It’s quite clearly driven by a desperate attempt to suck up to the LibDems rather than principle.
Populus tables available:
http://populuslimited.com/uploads/download_pdf-070210-The-Times-The-Times-Poll—February-2010.pdf
487, no, that’s not the case.
As I understand it, Labour and the silly Lib Dems will back AV. If the bill passes, and the Lords don’t tell the peasants to piss off, then we have a referendum unless there’s an outright Tory majority who stop it.
So if the AV Bill of Gerrymandering passes and we get a Hung Parliament we have the referendum, even if Labour and/or the Lib Dems lack any mandate to govern.
Also, it benefits, or is thought it will benefit, the leftish parties. It’s gerrymandering.
487. Of course you are, in a sense, right - but the nuances don’t matter. The fact is Labour HAVE tried to change the voting system just a few weeks before they face defeat at the hands of the voters.
What a brilliant gift for the Tories. How utterly stupid of Labour. Didn’t they realise that their chicanery would be read this way?
Great news re Election Night but if included in this present Bill would it become law before the GE?
493, hehe, like the pic of Noddy Clegg.
496. This is a superb opportunity for the Tories, they HAVE to seize it. Vote for us or Labour will try and make your vote meaningless: Labour will do anything to stay in power, including suddenly fixing the system in their favour ten weeks before an election.
Astonishingly myopic and dangerous stuff from Brown. Desperate.
489.”By 2005 Charles Kennedy’s core electoral strategy targeted Labour, a strategy buttressed by opposition to both student fees and the Iraq war.”
No Charles Kennedy, no Iraq and no student fees. Now we have Clegg abstaining when the Conservatives tried to get everyone to keep their manifesto promises on a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, and now voting with Gordon and the government in a grubby and cynical attempt to counter tactical voting unwind.
475 The risk is that we get economic meltdown even under the conservatives. They really do have to be quite bold in their first days. If they’re not we could get Brown back again before the Labour machinery can get rid of him. THAT in my view is the worst possible outcome of the GE.
496. “unless there’s an outright Tory majority who stop it.”
But that’s the point, isn’t it? If the Tories win the election, they can repeal the legislation and block the referendum. Won’t look that great (’Tories stop voters from having their say’) but it would be the simplest thing in the world to do.
489RE Thresher & lib dems.the link you give is to an article from a month ago!
Just done a surevey for ARPO - voting intention + leaders, my views on how representative Parliament is, plus some stuff about supermarkets giving 1% of their alcohol sales to charity.
I would note that I live in a marginal (Birmingham Hall Green), but I’ve been asked on voting intention ARPO surveys before, so it only might be the marginal survey.
Further to Tom Harris’ blog, this is the amendment the LDs have tabled and what they demand constituency boundaries should be (about halfway down):
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmbills/004/amend/pbc0040902m.882-888.html
WTF do they think they are? Unsurprisingly Chris Huhne is one of the names.
Oh, and I missed yhis because I was away, but kudos to the political class for uniting to save Election Night. Unless the vote fails to back Election Night, in which case they’re a pack of clowns.
Excellent question from Tom Harris. “Is the stainless reputation of Italian politicians down to their use of PR?”
503, er, no. You said that Labour win a mandate otherwise the Tories can stop it. You’ve missed out the Hung Parliament possibility, which would be Labour not getting a mandate but the Tories unable to stop the referendum.
As for ’stopping voters having their say’, it’s a very odd typing impediment you’ve got. Surely you meant ’stopping evil Labour gerrymandering the system due to tribal hatred of the Tories’?
492. I think we can afford to pay 4% if the alternative is a double dip recession. Clearly neither scenario is ideal, but given the abysmal growth in GDP in the Q4 2009 stats I remain of the view a fall back into recession/depression in the UK is the main economic worry in the short term (I accept the debt is a major issue in the medium term and the overall situation of our economy is terrible).
I think the most recent Tory policy (as I understand it, it may have altered since then) to cut £1.5bn in the next financial year is a little light myself. I certainly don’t think now is the time to increase taxes much above the proposed rises already in the pipeline (especially further NI increases or stuff like that). So they may need to do a bit more than that to satisfy the bond markets (although quite why we should be dictated to by these people when they and the ratings agencies are a major factor in the original economic crisis by failing to properly credit rate banks and by lending them money irresponsibly is another issue). But £5bn or so spending cuts in next financial year or so, ratcheting up after then, when economy is hopefully more stable, ought to do it hopefully.
As I say I think Cameron appreciates this issue, in terms of the recovery being very shallow indeed, rather more than Osborne, and I also remain of the view of Osborne was replaced by Clarke, Hague or similar as shadow chancellor that the tories would do much better both at the election, and then managing the economy post election.
Oh my life, what a cnut Chris Huhne is. He wants to turn the ENTIRE area of Brighton, Hove AND East Sussex into just one constituency with six representatives.
That’s Brighton. Hove. Whole of East Sussex. One constituency.
This of course has nothing to do with the LDs ‘losing there’ and wanting to gerrymander the system so that get a consolation prize in sixth place.
NEW THREAD
Just read this from the BBC website as breaking news:
Kraft Foods confirms plans to close Cadbury’s Somerdale factory near Bristol
Populus poll -England & Wales only
Con, 42%
Lab, 29%
LD, 20%
508 - Tom Harris relying heavily there on his extensive knowledge of what the Italian electoral system was twenty years ago. Good stuff.
503: James @ 17:55
Is not the whole point of this sordid piece of legislation to get the Conservatives to say they would repeal it?
The way forward I should like to see is for Cameron to promise a Royal Commission on the constitutional settlement to include equal devolution of powers, the future role of the Westminster parliament, a final settlement fo the Lords issue and voting methods. As long as the was a concomitant commitment to submit the Commission’s recommendations to a referendum, everyone would win - apart from Dr. Brown.
Seth. I imagine research has shown that the Tory weakness is that voters think DC is a PR man who’ll say whatever is required to get elected. So it’s reasonable that their first poster should push that point. It’s weakness-like the Cameron poster-is that it answers the brief crudely and voters will say ‘they would say that wouldn’t they?’
Saatchi (if it’s them) are a very smart agency and their house style are campaigns with legs. Think Castlemaine. I doubt this is intended to do anymore than show their direction of travel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtwkDGlpWJk
@487:
Right or wrong, doing it weeks before a general election when Brown’s expected to lose looks extremely rum. It confirms people’s worst expectations about Brown, and reminds us that the man is all tactics, no strategy.
And if Labour’s obedient little yellow pets go along with this transparent politicking, it shows us once and for all what soulless little political weasels the Lib Dems are.
http://www.iaindale.blogspot.com/
Re: ‘Why are many with a passion for politics so partisan - particularly when it impacts on their judgement?’
Simple: most of them have never spent any time on the doorstep canvassing, engaging with strangers who don’t share their blinkered world view, so they cannot imagine how most people think, feel and react - particularly those who are of a different generation to themselves.